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Oral Answers to Questions
(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)
1. What policies his Department is putting in place to increase growth in the rural economy.
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr David Heath)
Stimulating economic growth is the top priority for this Government. We want to see rural areas contributing to and benefiting from that growth. A £165 million package of measures from the 2011 rural economy growth review is helping rural communities. We are improving superfast broadband infrastructure in the remotest areas and boosting key sectors such as tourism. We are increasing export potential and unlocking barriers to growth by removing red tape.
Julian Sturdy
I thank my hon. Friend for his answer. He is right that superfast broadband is one of the key drivers of growth in the rural community. York and North Yorkshire have made great progress on delivering the Government’s target of 90% coverage by 2015. However, there is a danger that the digital divide could widen for some rural communities in the other 10% of cases. Will my hon. Friend do all he can to push the case for those rural communities?
Mr Heath
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We must make sure that the advantages of high-speed broadband reach every community across the country, which is exactly what we are determined to do in time. The good news is that we are reaching an extra 100,000 households a week, so they now have the opportunity to use high-speed broadband. I think that is very good news and we will, of course, continue to roll out the programme across the country.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
If the Minister is so committed to boosting rural growth, why is he taking out of the pockets of poor agricultural workers a quarter of a billion pounds by abolishing the Agricultural Wages Board, which was opposed by two thirds of those in the consultation, including many farmers?
Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)
Last night at the meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on cheese, the Minister was able to see a wide array of excellent British cheeses, which are highly regarded in the world markets. I know that the Secretary of State has done good work promoting British cheese in China. What other countries will the Department target on behalf of these excellent British products?
Mr Heath
I think we have to do everything we can to promote excellent British products. Indeed, I entirely agree with what my hon. Friend said about cheese. I was delighted to see cheese from my own constituency on display at last night’s meeting, but I was even more delighted only last week to see cheese produced only four miles from where I live on display in Dubai at the biggest international trade fair in the world. We were promoting the interests of British business, and over 60 businesses were there. I will also be pleased to join British companies in promoting good British produce in Bangkok next week.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister will be aware of a good article and the very fine speech given just this week to the Engineering Employers Federation by the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. Much of what he is saying would regenerate the rural economy, but he is also a passionate supporter of crowd funding and crowd sourcing, which many of us see as a regenerative tool in towns and in the rural economy. What does the Minister think of that?
Mr Heath
I think that any tool that is effective in urban areas is likely to be effective in rural areas as well. I have repeatedly sought to make the point not only that rural areas must not miss out on economic regeneration but that they are in many ways in a position to lead, as they have a huge contribution to make. I want to ensure that every single community in this country has the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of economic growth as it develops.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
The residents of 22 villages in the borough of Kettering are concerned about petrol and diesel prices, rural crime and the access to and cost of off-grid energy, as well as access to rural broadband. What representations to the relevant Government Departments has my hon. Friend made on those important issues?
Mr Heath
This Department has a responsibility for rural proofing across government, which means that we continually have a dialogue with other Departments about all the factors that have the potential to hold back individuals, businesses and communities in rural areas. The hon. Gentleman may be assured that we constantly make the point that we must have a clear regard for the more than 80% of the landmass that is rural Britain. It comprises only 20% of the population, but it is nevertheless enormously important to the fabric of this country.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
How I wish that I had a pair of the Minister’s rose-tinted spectacles. In fact, the Government’s national economic strategy is shot; rural growth is further constrained by inflation running at double the national average, higher costs of living and working; and the slow roll-out of rural broadband is leading to open warfare around the Cabinet table. How does the Minister believe that taking another quarter of a billion pounds out of the rural economy and the pockets of low-paid farm workers by scrapping the Agricultural Wages Board will jump-start the rural economy?
Mr Heath
I spent 13 years on the Opposition Benches trying to press the case for rural areas. The then Labour Government did not listen to what was said in rural areas then, and I note that the hon. Gentleman is not listening now to the realities of what is happening in those areas and the realities of what is happening in the agricultural industry. If he did, he would take a very different position.
Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)
2. What assessment he has made of the effects of partnership funding on the provision of flood defences.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)
Partnership funding is enabling more schemes to go ahead and allowing greater local choice. It has already produced up to £148 million in external funding over the four years to 2015, compared with £13 million during the previous three years. There are indications that a larger proportion of protected households will be in deprived areas, and up to a quarter more schemes are set to go ahead in the coming years than was the case under the old system.
Mel Stride
The additional funding will be most welcome to my constituents—not least those in Buckfastleigh and Kennford, who were grievously affected by the recent flooding—but may I urge my hon. Friend to ensure that it is rolled out as quickly as possible, and may I also ask him how many properties in Devon will benefit from it?
Richard Benyon
My hon. Friend has been a strong advocate for his constituents, who suffered so much flooding last year, and his question is entirely understandable. I can tell him that £35 million of the £120 million that we announced in the autumn statement last year is already available for the 2013-14 financial year, and that the remaining £85 million will be allocated to schemes starting in 2014-15. That means that 5,000 homes in Devon will benefit from additional funds.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Will the Minister confirm that even with the money announced in the autumn statement, capital spending by his Department in 2013-14 will be less than it was in 2008?
Richard Benyon
That old chestnut must be laid to rest. In cash terms, we are spending roughly the same in this comprehensive spending review period as the hon. Gentleman’s party spent in the last one. His Chancellor, in his last Budget statement, announced 50% cuts in capital budgets for Departments such as mine. The hon. Gentleman cannot come here and try to compare apples with pears. Labour Members must move on from this, and understand that we are doing what we need to do in very difficult financial circumstances.
Mr Nick Gibb (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)
In February, the Minister announced £10.8 million of capital to upgrade the tidal defences on the east bank of the River Arun in Littlehampton, in my constituency. That is a welcome decision, which demonstrates the Government’s commitment to building new flood defences, but it is not time for the insurance industry to match that commitment by agreeing to a replacement for the flood insurance statement of principles, which expires in June this year?
Richard Benyon
I congratulate my hon. Friend on the excellent work that he did in drawing attention to the needs of the people of Littlehampton following the floods that they suffered so recently. We are working at a very fast tempo at the highest levels of Government to try to achieve an agreement which will massively improve on the statement of principles, which first does not cover every home and secondly contains nothing about affordability. We want a better system for the future.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
3. What steps he is taking to prepare and adapt homes, businesses, agricultural practices and infrastructure against the threat of flooding and water scarcity resulting from the increased frequency of extreme weather.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)
The Government will publish a report on the national adaptation programme later this year, which will set out actions to address the impacts of the increased frequency of extreme weather events on the built environment, our infrastructure network, businesses, our farming and forestry sectors, the natural environment and our health. The Government are spending £2.3 billion on reducing the risk from flooding and coastal erosion over this four-year period.
Barry Gardiner
I am grateful to the Minister for his response. He will know that last year in the UK flooding was experienced on one in every five days, while on one in every four days there was drought subject to a hosepipe ban. One in seven houses and 10% of the country’s critical infrastructure are now exposed to flood risk, yet by 2014-15 some 23% less will be spent on these matters. Will the Minister consider the exhortation from the chairman of the Environment Agency to take urgent action now to avoid the coming problems?
Richard Benyon
The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point about the extremes of weather we have experienced in the last 12 months. We were facing a real problem with drought, and there was a 3% chance of getting a sufficiently wet summer to alleviate it, yet it happened. However, it has of course brought huge other problems. I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s point about the level of spending—I refer him back to my response to the previous question—and I can assure him that we listen very carefully to experts in the EA. When we asked its leadership what further projects it could bring forward if we found extra money, it told us and we got the money; that was announced in the September statement.
Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)
What can the Minister do to assist residents who live near small tributaries and who cannot understand which authority is responsible for them? There seems to be confusion between highways authorities, the EA, local councils and county councils as to who has responsibility for clearing the waterways around tributaries.
Richard Benyon
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. This matter was discussed at yesterday’s EA board meeting and we are in close touch with the EA and other organisations. There is a degree of confusion. That was brought out in the Pitt review. Some effort has been put in, and some progress has been made in addressing the problem, but I absolutely concede we are not there yet and there is still confusion about who is responsible and what the priorities are. We want to make sure that the priorities are protecting people and their properties and the environment.
George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)
4. What recent representations his Department has received on tackling the problem of backstreet puppy farms and breeders.
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr David Heath)
In addition to a recent Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee report on dog control and welfare, my noble Friend the Under-Secretary, Lord de Mauley, has received a number of letters on the subject of puppy farms, irresponsible breeders and the internet advertising of dogs. The Animal Welfare Act 2006 provides the necessary powers for local authorities to investigate allegations of poor welfare among all dog breeders.
George Eustice
I am grateful for that answer. In the Committee’s recent inquiry, we received evidence that a contributory factor in respect of the problem of status dogs is the number of backstreet puppy breeders, because dogs are more likely to become aggressive and unmanageable if they are not socialised and cared for properly in the first few months. The law currently allows people to breed up to five puppy litters a year without licensing, but we recommended that the figure should be reduced to two. Will the Minister look carefully at that proposal?
Mr Heath
I have every sympathy with the reasoning behind the hon. Gentleman’s proposal, and I certainly deplore the irresponsible breeding of dogs. I can assure him that it is already the case that if a local authority considers that someone is in the business of breeding and selling dogs but they have produced fewer than five litters in a year, a licence would still be needed, and any dog-breeding establishment that produces five or more litters in a 12-month period will also need a licence regardless of whether it is considered to be in the business of breeding and selling dogs. Guidance on that was given to local authorities back in 1999, explaining precisely where those responsibilities lie.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Backstreet puppy farms are a problem in the entire United Kingdom. As a Northern Ireland MP, I am also aware of such farms in the Republic of Ireland, with puppies coming through Northern Ireland to the UK and going directly from the Republic of Ireland to the UK mainland. Has the Minister had any discussions about this problem with the Government in the Republic of Ireland, so that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland together with the Republic of Ireland can address it?
Mr Heath
I will certainly draw that point to the attention of my noble Friend the Under-Secretary and see whether he has had an opportunity to speak to his counterparts in the Republic of Ireland and also in Northern Ireland on the issue. If he has not, I am sure he will want to take up the suggestion that has been made.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
5. What steps he is taking to reduce the costs of EU regulations affecting farmers and food producers.
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr David Heath)
We are committed to reducing regulatory costs on farmers and food processors. In the EU we are working closely with the Commission to ensure that all new proposals adhere to the Commission’s communications on smart regulation and the Government’s guiding principles for EU legislation. We are reducing unnecessary burdens from existing legislation through our response to the farming taskforce, with initiatives that include taking action to simplify paperwork and improve the way on-farm inspections are performed.
Priti Patel
Figures from my hon. Friend’s Department show that in the past two years, 67 EU regulations have been passed, adding £500 million in costs to British farmers and producers. What steps is he taking to support our farmers by cutting back on EU regulations and cutting the costs of the EU for British farmers?
Mr Heath
Not all those costs will impact on farmers and food processors, of course, but the hon. Lady raises a valid point about the cost of EU regulation that I hope is not lost on Members of the European Parliament and European Commissioners. That is precisely why we are committed to making progress on our better regulation agenda and why at EU level we continue to press for all new proposals to adhere to the Commission’s smart regulation policy. We are also abiding by this Government’s principles for EU legislation, which include regulating only when there are no alternatives and ensuring that there is no gold-plating when introducing European measures into UK law.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
When I met the Minister on 10 December last year to discuss my Food Waste Bill, he promised he would give me a copy of the advice his Department had received from the Food Standards Agency about whether the provisions in the Bill to remove civil and criminal liability from good faith donors of food waste would be compatible with EU food safety regulations, as it was suggested by his Department that they were not. I am still waiting for a copy of that advice despite chasing the Department—can he update me on that?
Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
6. What recent discussions he has had on the adulteration of food in the UK.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
12. What recent discussions he has had on the adulteration of food in the UK.
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)
On 25 and 27 February I updated the House on the discussions I have had on the adulteration of food in the UK with the food industry and at a European level. I continue to have regular update discussions with the Food Standards Agency and I shall also be meeting the food industry on a regular basis.
Andrew Miller
Obviously, this is not just about adulteration with horsemeat. I am sure that the Secretary of State will agree that consumers have the right to know everything about the content of food that is sold to them. Will he reassure the House about whether he has done a proper analysis of the capacity of British laboratories to undertake the research necessary to give consumers the confidence that they are entitled to?
Mr Paterson
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question and entirely agree that no matter what the price of a product, it must be as marked on the label and as sold. To do otherwise is a fraud on the public. He asks about laboratory capacity. We need only look at what has happened: in an extraordinarily short time in recent weeks, the industry has conducted 5,430 tests that have shown that less than 1% of the products are adulterated.
Ian Murray
May I draw the House’s attention to a non-declarable interest as a former employee of the Meat Hygiene Service? It costs approximately £170 to test each slaughtered horse for bute, yet the meat is worth only about £300. The industry has talked a lot about full cost recovery, so will the Minister tell the House when the taxpayer will stop having to pick up the bill for bute testing and how much he estimates the total bill will be?
Mr Paterson
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question, which is very relevant. We have cauterised the problem of bute getting into the food chain, as no horse carcase can enter the food chain until it has tested negative for bute, but he is right to raise that question. This is a holding position. I had a meeting with senior members of the horse industry recently because the horse passport scheme that we inherited is unsatisfactory. We will make proposals on that in due course.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
The Food Standards Agency has a big role to play in this regard and I believe that it has failed to step up to the plate. Following the capability review that was completed in January and the work being undertaken by the National Audit Office, when might the Government be minded to make proposals to reform the FSA?
Mr Paterson
I have to remind my hon. Friend and the House that this is an overall European competence. Under regulation 178/2002 we must work within the European regime, and having an independent agency is very much part of that. I pay tribute to the work that the agency has conducted under great pressure in recent weeks, working very closely with the industry and conducting an extraordinarily large number of tests—5,430, as I said. Once we have seen where this criminal conspiracy began and once we have found the criminals—I remind the House that this is an international problem, with 23 countries involved—we will begin to look at the lessons learned. I am clear that within this regime we must have more testing of product and more random testing of finished product.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State agree that one of the lessons that we can learn from this is to have much better, honest labelling and to know exactly where our processed meat product comes from and that it is produced to good farm-assured standards such as the red tractor scheme in this country?
Mr Paterson
I agree that clearer labelling could help, but we are up against a criminal conspiracy and I think the criminals would have got through. I had a constructive meeting with the French, German, Austrian and Finnish Ministers in Brussels last week, and we are asking the European Commission to accelerate its report on the labelling and marking of the country of origin.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
On 22 February Sodexo announced that it had found horsemeat in a beef product and withdrew meat from schools in Gloucestershire, Southampton and Leicestershire and the armed forces. Sodexo has refused publicly to name the product, the level of horse adulteration or the meat company which supplied it, thereby preventing other organisations from knowing whether their supplies are at risk. The Government know the name of that meat supplier. Will the Secretary of State now name that company so that the rest of the public sector can check its supplies?
Mr Paterson
I discussed this issue yesterday with the chief executive of the Food Standards Agency, who is completely satisfied that the information required from Sodexo has been supplied. The hon. Lady must understand that there is an investigation going on and in some of these cases it might lead to criminal prosecution. [Interruption.] No, the FSA is clear that it must be guarded about what information can be revealed in case the investigations are impinged upon.
Mary Creagh
I find that answer extraordinary. The Secretary of State has a duty to tell the public what he knows and in every other case where supermarkets and other suppliers have found adulterated meat products, their suppliers have been named. How is the public sector supposed to check?
I want to move on to a letter from John Young, a former manager at the Meat Hygiene Service, who sent this letter from High Peak Meat Exports to DEFRA in April 2011. It warned the Government that bute-contaminated horsemeat could illegally enter the human food chain because of failures with the horse passport system, which I have raised in the House before. On 17 February the Secretary of State ordered an urgent investigation into those claims. What has that investigation found, and has he discovered why his Government colleagues ignored that warning?
Mr Paterson
To clarify the previous answer, Sodexo made it clear to all its customers which products there was a problem with. It has withdrawn them all but in the case of an investigation which might grow criminal, it would not be sensible to reveal names of suppliers. This is a criminal conspiracy which covers 23 different countries, and it does not help the police to arrive at prosecutions if information is revealed.
On horse passports, we are clear that we have fixed the problem of bute getting into the food chain. No carcases will get into the food chain until they have tested negative for bute. That is absolutely clear, and we are clear that the horse passport regime which we inherited from the hon. Lady’s party needs reforming, and we will do that in due course.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
7. What recent discussions he has had with Ministers in the devolved Administrations on the adulteration of food in the UK.
Gregg McClymont (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (Lab)
9. What recent discussions he has had with Ministers in the Scottish Government on the adulteration of food.
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)
I have been in regular contact with Ministers in the devolved Administrations to discuss the issue. Ministers from Scotland and Wales attended my meeting with the food industry on 18 February, where we made it clear that the adulteration of food is unacceptable and that consumers have to be the top priority. I most recently met Ministers in all the devolved Administrations at a pre-Agriculture Council meeting in Brussels on 25 February and the Welsh Minister briefly on Monday. I am grateful for their support.
Mark Lazarowicz
Scotland has a high-quality food industry and it is important that its reputation is maintained. What steps is the Minister taking, along with the devolved Administrations, to look at the prevention of adulteration in areas other than those that we have seen so far? Clearly, we cannot predict criminality but we should make sure that we act proactively as far as possible.
Mr Paterson
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to be proud of the quality of Scottish products, as we are, because of the high quality of the raw materials, their traceability and the thoroughness of our production systems. That is why this case must be sorted out. We cannot allow a small number of criminals to do huge damage to a key industry. We are discussing the issue of other types of adulteration with the FSA. That is particularly important to some minorities, so we will be looking to test for pork adulteration.
Gregg McClymont
The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), who chairs the Select Committee, has been clear that the Government were caught flat-footed by the horsemeat scandal. In that case, how would the Secretary of State describe the Scottish Government’s response, given that they picked up the phone nearly a week after Asda began clearing its shelves?
Mr Paterson
I am not responsible for the Scottish Government. All I will say is that I would like to thank the Scottish Minister and the Welsh Minister for their steadfast support. They came down to the last big meeting I held with industry leaders, and we were all completely united on the need to sort out this criminal conspiracy in order to clear the name of British food making. We want to get exporting and pushing on to expand the industry. We will not have it held back by criminal activity.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
Cross-contamination by horsemeat in every part of the United Kingdom could be stopped if we prevented the killing of horses in multi-species abattoirs. Does the Secretary of State not agree that the trade in horsemeat is fairly revolting and that Britain would be a better place if we had none of it at all? Let us kill the horsemeat trade altogether and we will not have to worry about contamination.
Mr Paterson
A small number of horses—about 9,000—are slaughtered every year in this country. I am not sure that abattoirs would be viable if they concentrated only on one species, but it is an idea that I would like to discuss with my hon. Friend and perhaps take further.
Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con)
Has my right hon. Friend discussed with his Welsh and Scottish counterparts the fact that many of our constituents find this issue very distasteful, not only because of the thought of eating horsemeat but because of the certain knowledge that horses will be transported and slaughtered in appalling circumstances by shadowy people in those 23 countries?
Mr Paterson
I have discussed the issue with Commissioner Borg and other Ministers, because there is a significant trade in horses across the continent of Europe. My hon. Friend and his constituents are absolutely right: if they buy a product that is sold as processed beef, regardless of price, it should be processed beef. Any adulteration with any other material is a conspiracy to defraud the public, and we are determined to get to the bottom of it.
Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)
15. The export of Scotch beef and Scotch beef-based food products is vital for the manufacturing base in the Scottish economy. What discussions is the Secretary of State having with the Scottish Government to ensure that producers and consumers can have confidence in the products they buy?
Mr Paterson
My hon. Friend the Minister of State attended the 100th anniversary celebrations of the National Farmers Union of Scotland, and I have discussed the matter with Minster Lochhead. We both agree that we have a job to do, working closely with the industry, to promote strict traceability and production systems. I was interested to note that at the NFU conference last week in Birmingham that people really had their tails up because there is now an opportunity, with the public being so interested in the supply chain, to stress how good our industry is and how reliable our products are.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
8. What recent discussions he has had on flood insurance.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)
The availability and affordability of insurance in flood-risk areas are important issues for the Government. Constructive negotiations continue with the insurance industry, at the highest levels of Government, on a range of approaches that could succeed the current statement of principles. The Government are on course to spend £2.3 billion on reducing the risk from flooding and coastal erosion and delivering better protection to 165,000 households over the four years to March 2015.
Lilian Greenwood
On 24 January I asked the Minister how much premiums will rise if he fails to reach agreement with the insurance industry. In response, he assured me that negotiations were at an advanced stage and that he would come to the House with details shortly. I understand that he does not actually have a seat at the negotiating table, but when does he expect to have news of a deal from his Cabinet Office and Treasury colleagues?
Richard Benyon
I think that there is a misconception in some parts of the House that the statement of principles represents some halcyon world in which our constituents living in high flood-risk areas are protected from exorbitant rises in premiums. That is not the case. What we want is affordability to be brought into the new system. I am involved in those conversations at the highest levels and want to assure the House that we are working as hard as we can to find a solution that can give comfort to everyone who is at risk of flooding, particularly those on low incomes.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
17. My constituents in West Worcestershire, which is quite flood-prone, are concerned about the length of the negotiations. I understand that the Association of British Insurers is asking for the taxpayer, in effect, to be the reinsurer of last resort. How confident is the Minister that we will be able to come up with a private sector-led solution in time for the expiration of the statement of principles?
Richard Benyon
My hon. Friend has a great many constituents who live in flood risk, and we want to be able to assure them that there is something that will continue after the end of the statement of principles. As I said to the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), the new system is better because it will not only be available to all properties that are at flood risk but will have an affordability element. We have in mind my hon. Friend’s constituents and many others around the country who live in flood risk, but we are also responsible to the taxpayer. We want to make sure that what we are doing is fair to the taxpayer and fair to the person living in flood risk.
Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)
The Building Societies Association has said that the consequences of failing to get a deal would be “grave”. Potential buyers would find it difficult or impossible to get a mortgage, loan book values would drop, capital requirements would rise, and there would be less money to lend in the real economy. Is sales blight on 200,000 properties an acceptable price to pay for this Government’s inaction?
Richard Benyon
The hon. Gentleman is wrong when he says that there is inaction; I can assure him that there is an awful lot of action. Alongside the negotiations that have been going on, we have been producing documents such as one that has been highly recommended by the British Institute of Insurance Brokers Association: “Obtaining flood insurance in high risk areas”. We are also assisting people in flood-risk measures they take for their property at household level so that that will be reflected in the premium. The hon. Gentleman is right to be concerned about the potential impact on mortgages and lenders, and that is one of the main drivers towards the quick result we want to get in this matter.
Mr Speaker
I am deeply obliged to the Minister, but there are a couple of people called Smith whom I still want to accommodate. I call Sir Robert.
Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (LD)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. May I reinforce to the Minister the importance of achieving affordability? Will he take the message from the people of Stonehaven, who have been flooded for a second time, that urgency is also important so that they can have the comfort of reinsuring their properties?
Richard Benyon
I entirely accept what my hon. Friend says. There is an urgent need to get a resolution, but I hope that he agrees—I am sure he does—that it cannot be at any price; we have to be mindful of the needs of the taxpayer as well as those of his constituents. This is a fiscal matter and therefore a UK responsibility, so it is important that we liaise closely with the devolved Governments as well.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
10. What progress he has made on securing a ban on fish discards.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)
At last month’s EU Fisheries Council I secured agreement to a reformed common fisheries policy which includes a ban on discards. Alongside firm deadlines and the practical means to deliver a ban, this moves us much closer to eliminating the terrible waste caused by discarding. Discussions with the European Parliament will now begin in order to agree the final common fisheries policy reform package later this year.
Henry Smith
I congratulate my hon. Friend on the tenacity of his negotiating skills in Brussels, because some of the options that were being proposed would have been disastrous for British fishermen. May I seek assurances that in the further negotiations he will champion British fishermen and the welfare of British waters?
Richard Benyon
I thank my hon. Friend. Our fishermen have led the way in reducing discards through innovative schemes such as the catch quota scheme and Project 50%. There has been good work by my Department on supply chains and other measures that will need to be brought in to ensure that a discard ban works. My hon. Friend is right that we managed to see off some changes that would have dramatically watered down any discard ban. I am really pleased that we are now on track to achieving what the vast majority of our constituents want.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)
The priorities of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are to grow the rural economy, improve the environment and safeguard animal and plant health. As well as handling issues such as the adulteration of processed beef products, we continue to seek to put farming on a sustainable footing for the future. This includes working towards a common agricultural policy settlement that will enable farmers to respond to the needs of the market, while delivering valuable environmental benefits and boosting potential for exports. As I outlined at last week’s National Farmers Union conference, both of these things will enable farmers to capitalise on the growing domestic and global demand for high-quality UK produce. At every opportunity we will champion our farmers and their rigorous standards of production and traceability.
Stephen Timms
In a series of decisions, the European Commission has unbalanced the previous level playing field in the European sugar market between beet processors and cane refiners. As a result, we have very high prices for sugar, super profits for beet processors and a threat to the viability of cane refining in Europe. Will the Minister make sure that the forthcoming changes to the CAP get us back to a level playing field?
Mr Paterson
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his question. He is absolutely correct. At present, the quota regime is due to end in 2015 and he is right that sugar prices are 35% higher than world prices, which is 1% on the cost of the average shopping basket. We are clear that we want the quota regime to go. I promise the right hon. Gentleman that, at every opportunity when this issue is raised, I remember the need to defend the interests of cane importers and to make sure that the duty regime is fair to them.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
T3. Will Ministers update us on where we are with dangerous dogs legislation, given the continued prevalence of attacks and, indeed, organised dog fighting?
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr David Heath)
My hon. Friend will be aware of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State’s recent announcement that we intend to proceed with changes to dangerous dog legislation by bringing in new antisocial behaviour provisions. We are talking to the Home Office about that and we intend to bring them in at the earliest opportunity.
Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
T2. What can the Minister say to reassure my constituents in Sunderland that when they buy a product, whether it is beef, lamb or even horse, they are getting what they have paid for and what they have been promised?
Mr Heath
I think that we have made it abundantly clear that that is exactly what needs to happen. Retailers and people in the catering industry have a clear responsibility and we are determined to do everything we can to make sure that that is the case, which is exactly what has been happening over the past few weeks.
Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
T4. Do Ministers consider it acceptable that a number of historic English churches are being made unusable as a consequence of bat faeces and that mediaeval wall paintings and other historic monuments are being irretrievably damaged as a consequence of bat urine? Churches are not farm barns. They are places of worship and should be respected as such.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend and share his intense frustration. I am glad to say that we are moving forward with one church in Yorkshire, where we think we may have found a resolution, and some churches in Norfolk. It cannot have ever been the intention of those who imposed this directive on us to limit the ability of people to worship in a church that has been there for centuries.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
T5. Last week the Secretary of State said that he was keen to delay European Union proposals to protect essential pollinators from neonicotinoids until new British field data were available. At the very same time, his own chief scientist was telling members of the Environmental Audit Committee that those same trials had been deeply compromised. When will the Secretary of State stop prevaricating and implement a moratorium on the use of neonicotinoids without further delay?
Mr Paterson
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for making the position clear. There have been a number of reports based on laboratory data. I have raised the issue with Minister Coveney, who has the presidency of the European Union, and had a meeting with Commissioner Borg about it only last week. We have asked them to wait until the data from our field trials have been analysed. We are fully aware of the strength of feeling that the hon. Lady represents, but there are also people who believe that these materials are not damaging. What is absolutely critical is that we do the right thing for bees, because they play such a fundamental role. There is no point in removing one product if it does not actually hurt bees. What we really need to do is look at how we can promote bee health, because it is so important to all plant life.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
T7. Is my hon. Friend aware that yesterday was an important day in the political calendar, as it was national salad day, and that, in my constituency of Harlow and the surrounding villages of Roydon and Nazeing, we have the highest concentration of cucumber and pepper growers across the United Kingdom? Will the Government place more weight on food production in the planning system to help the Lee valley growers and glasshouse industry in my constituency?
Mr Heath
It certainly was an important day, because I had the opportunity to meet growers and discuss exactly that issue. There clearly needs to be proper accommodation for growing food stuffs in this country through the planning system, but it is equally right—the Government are clear on this—that local planning decisions need to be taken locally. Central Government have continually to remind our colleagues in local government, however, that having sustainable food production in this country is a top priority. We have an increasing population to feed, and we must ensure that we can do so in a sustainable way.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
T6. Even if the Treasury allows the Minister to resolve the general stand-off with the insurance industry over the statement of principles, will not the coalition’s flood defence cuts and the partnership funding plan mean that deprived areas such as mine in Hull will not be able to get the investment into the area to allow the insurance industry to provide insurance to my constituents?
Richard Benyon
I suggest that the hon. Lady looks at the facts of the schemes that we have just brought forward. These are schemes in many cities that have constantly failed to get above the line, but which, owing to partnership funding and extra Treasury funding, are now going ahead—in Leeds, Exeter, Ipswich and many others places. I understand the great concern in Hull, as it has suffered from flooding in the past, and I can assure her that it will remain a Government priority to build flood protection.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
T8. May I congratulate the Secretary of State on the progress being made on reform of the common agricultural policy? He must be aware of the particular difficulties of tenant farmers who are graziers on common land in north Yorkshire. Will he ensure that Natural England and the Department fully understand that tenants who are active farmers must benefit from the funds after CAP reform?
Mr Paterson
As my hon. Friend knows, the CAP negotiations are getting particularly intense at the moment. I have taken her comments on board and will bear them in mind as we draw nearer a conclusion.
Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
I very much welcome the progress being made towards ending the scandal of fish discards, but is the Minister aware of the dramatic recent falls in fish prices and does he share my concern that certain sections of the media are representing our sustainable fishing industry in a grossly irresponsible way?
Richard Benyon
My time in post has shown me that large areas of the media have no interest in understanding the complexities of marine management, so I share the hon. Lady’s concern. I can assure her that I am very concerned, particularly about the drop in the cod price, which I know will affect livelihoods in her constituency. We want a fair price for a sustainably harvested product, and everything that my Department is trying to do, with the devolved Governments, is working towards that.
Jessica Lee (Erewash) (Con)
T9. I represent one of just three constituencies named after a river, so my question concerns our waterways. What support are the Government giving to groups such as the Erewash Canal Preservation and Development Association in my constituency, which, along with an army of volunteers, does a huge amount to help preserve our historic waterways?
Richard Benyon
I pay great tribute to that association, which does such great work. Last year, we achieved something very rare in this House. With all-party agreement, we secured the transfer of a Government body to a charity that has been well-funded for a considerable number of years, giving the opportunity for such organisations to benefit. The number of volunteer days around the country has rocketed as a result of the new charity.
Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)
Following DEFRA press releases on the food adulteration issue, one of my constituents wrote to ask if she was the only one who had a problem with the fact that even 1% of products might not be what they claim to be on the label. As she pointed out, that means that of 5,000 products 50 will be adulterated, and that if those 50 are popular lines, millions of people are being duped. Will the Minister please do something about the self-satisfied tone of DEFRA press releases?
Mr Heath
I am not sure about a self-satisfied tone, but the Food Standards Agency is discussing exactly that issue with consumers at the moment. There is a clear difference between very trace contamination and deliberate adulteration. We all understand that. The question is where the dividing line is and what is acceptable. It is quite right that the FSA should talk to real people about that and see what they think.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
T10. It was a tough year for farmers in west Worcestershire last year, so can the Minister cheer them up by telling them how well the Rural Payments Agency performed this year?
Mr Heath
I would be delighted to do that, but I am not sure that even the performance of the RPA will be enough entirely to cheer up farmers who are wrestling with the weather. In the written statement that I made to the House earlier, I confirmed that by 19 February 2013, the RPA had paid out a total of £1.6 billion to more than 102,000 farmers, which is 98.4% of customers. That exceeds the performance target for March and meets the EU benchmark some four months early. Farmer satisfaction levels are the highest ever recorded, and the RPA has just delivered the most successful payment record in its history. That is an extremely good job.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
The common fisheries policy was described recently by a continental EU politician as a “disaster”, so those of us in the UK who take that view are not alone. Is it not the case that monitoring fishing in EU waters, including discards, cannot be effective until those waters are returned to the historic boundaries of member states?
Richard Benyon
I share the view that the common fisheries policy has been a disaster: it has been a disaster for fish stocks, fishermen, coastal communities and the health of our seas. Working within the world in which we have to operate and playing the hand that we have been dealt, I hope that we are getting good, meaningful reform. We will be delivering much of the regionalisation that the hon. Gentleman wants through the reform of the policy.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
1. What support the Electoral Commission is offering to parliamentary constituencies with a high proportion of ethnic minority voters to assist with individual registration.
Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon)
The Electoral Commission will provide guidance and support to electoral registration officers on how best to ensure that people are registered under the new system. The guidance will advise on how best to reach those who are least likely to be registered or to respond to the change, including certain black and minority ethnic groups. Electoral registration officers should use their knowledge of the local community to ensure that they do that as effectively as possible. The Electoral Commission will also run a public awareness campaign targeted at those groups during the transition.
Fiona Mactaggart
I think that we need more than that. The data-matching pilots, the evaluation of which was published in December, revealed that in Tower Hamlets, data matching connected with only 55% of voters, whereas in Wigan the figure was over 80%. We know that the mismatch between the registration of ethnic minority eligible voters and white eligible voters is about 10%. Therefore, should the Electoral Commission not work with electoral registration officers in areas with large ethnic minority communities to look at new methods and resources that could ensure that individual registration works for all of us?
Mr Streeter
The hon. Lady raises an important point. The Electoral Commission is working with electoral registration officers, particularly in areas where there are hard-to-reach groups. However, electoral registration officers should rely on their own local experience and expertise to get the job done. It might help the hon. Lady to know that data matching is expected to ensure that 70% of people across the country will transfer automatically to the new register. As I have said before, anyone who is on the register in 2014 will be transferred automatically to the May 2015 register.
Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)
2. If he will meet representatives from York and Leicester, including the deans of the cathedrals and hon. Members from both cities to discuss arrangements for the reburial of King Richard III.
The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Sir Tony Baldry)
The legal position is clear. The Ministry of Justice has granted a licence to the university of Leicester, which means that it is responsible for keeping the remains of King Richard III and for their reburial. It is intended that they will be reburied in Leicester cathedral.
Hugh Bayley
In October, when we last discussed this matter, which was before it had been established that the remains were those of King Richard, the hon. Gentleman said:
“Once those tests are concluded, the nature, place and marking of any reinterment will need seriously to be considered.”—[Official Report, 25 October 2012; Vol. 551, c. 1070.]
I said at the time that those were wise words and that it would be wrong to bicker in this Chamber about the burial place. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the matter should now be considered by experts, taking account of the wishes that King Richard expressed during his life and the views of clergy who do not have a vested interest, people from York and Leicester and all other interested parties, so that a decision can be made?
Mr Speaker
I think that the hon. Gentleman needs an Adjournment debate so that he can develop his thoughts fully. He cannot speak to Richard III about it, I am afraid, but he may be able to address the House.
Sir Tony Baldry
The hon. Gentleman has an Adjournment debate on this issue on Tuesday, and I suggest that he put those issues to Ministry of Justice Ministers then. As for the Church, we believe that in a situation such as this the remains should be reburied in the nearest possible church, which, as it happens, is Leicester cathedral.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
My constituents have been raising with me questions about the legality of what is happening at the moment about this, and although I am sympathetic to the case put by my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley), I would like to press the case for burying Richard III in Barnard Castle, where he lived happily for many years and where his insignia, the white boar, can still be seen engraved in the castle.
Sir Tony Baldry
I suggest that the hon. Lady seeks to intervene in the hon. Gentleman’s Adjournment debate with Ministry of Justice Ministers on Tuesday.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Unfortunately, Richard III did not have much time to plan his funeral. I do not think he would have been very worried about where he was buried, but he did live and die a Catholic, and so at his funeral could there not be some aspect of Catholicism to represent his life’s work?
Sir Tony Baldry
Every Sunday, I say, “I believe in one holy Catholic Church.” The more serious point is that whatever service takes place at Leicester cathedral, I am sure that the Dean of Leicester will want to involve representatives of the local Roman Catholic Church. Indeed, one wants to try to ensure that an event such as the respectful reburial of an English king is carried out in a way that does not cause controversy and that is respectful and accords with the wishes of the whole community.
Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)
4. What assessment the Electoral Commission has made of the effectiveness of its public awareness campaign for the police and crime commissioner elections.
Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon)
The Electoral Commission commissioned an independent research study to assess the effectiveness of its public awareness campaign. The results show a significant increase in awareness of the main elements of the campaign, including the date of the election and how to vote. The Electoral Commission will publish its statutory report later this month on the police and crime commissioner elections, which will identify what wider lessons need to be learned.
Meg Munn
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that answer. The Association of Electoral Administrators, in a highly critical report, has said:
“Voters were not at the heart of the process for the Police and Crime Commissioner Elections”.
It has recommended that the Government should improve public awareness and participation by providing for
“either a candidates’ mailing or the delivery of a booklet…about the…elections and about the candidates to all households.”
Is that an issue that has been considered by the Electoral Commission?
Mr Streeter
It most certainly is considered. I do not want to prejudge the report, which will be published later this month, but it is well known that the Electoral Commission advised the Government in advance of its concerns about the lack of information about candidates going to voters. I very much hope that before the next police and crime commissioner elections, which are due in 2016, significant lessons will have been learned.
Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)
One lesson I have learned is that if senior Members of this House, such as the shadow Home Secretary, are appearing on television screens before an election telling everyone that the election is a waste of time and money, we can hardly be surprised if the electors are not all that interested. Does my hon. Friend agree that if Members of this House are not prepared to stand up to champion democracy, we cannot be surprised if members of the public are not flocking to the polling stations?
Mr Streeter
I am delighted to say that the Electoral Commission is not responsible for any comments made by the shadow Home Secretary or any other Member of this House.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
5. What assessments he has received from independent sources of the quality of the work carried out by the National Audit Office.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough)
A number of external reviews are in place to provide independent assessments of the quality of the National Audit Office’s work: the NAO’s financial audit work is subject to independent review by the audit quality review team of the Financial Reporting Council; the quality of the NAO’s value-for-money reports is independently reviewed by independent experts from Oxford university’s Said business school and Risk Solutions; and the NAO’s external auditors conduct an annual value-for-money assessment, which is reported to the Public Accounts Commission.
Mr Sheerman
I am most grateful for that reply. All Members would normally agree that the National Audit Office does a very good job. Like the hon. Gentleman, I was once a member of the Public Accounts Committee. Did he see the vicious attack on the Chair of that Committee by the Justice Secretary just a few days ago, alleging that she was biased, unprincipled and should not chair that Committee? Is that right?
Mr Leigh
I do not think it is for me as Chair of the Public Accounts Commission to try to second-guess vigorous debate. In my humble opinion, the PAC under its present Chair and with its present members does an excellent job in holding the Executive to account, and I am sure on all occasions it would avoid party politics.
Mr Speaker
I dare say the right hon. Member concerned will bear stoically and with fortitude whatever arrows have been pointed in her direction.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
6. What discussions the Church Commissioners have had with the Archbishop of Canterbury on his priorities during the early stages of his ministry.
The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Sir Tony Baldry)
I am sure the House will wish Archbishop Justin well as he starts out on his public ministry to the nation. Early indications as to his priorities can be seen in a number of ways such as the appointment of new staff at Lambeth, the first ever woman chaplain to an Archbishop of Canterbury and a director of reconciliation. Other priorities clearly include his concerns for public spiritual renewal, peace building and reconciliation, as well as tackling economic deprivation and support for marginalised communities.
Simon Hughes
I join the hon. Gentleman in wishing the new archbishop very well indeed. Have any discussions led us to understand that under his new tenure of office the Church will continue to speak out for the poor, the marginalised, the deprived and minorities, which the gospel made the clear and principal mission of the Church?
Sir Tony Baldry
I am sure that Archbishop Justin will remember the words of Archbishop Temple who observed that the Church of England is an organisation that exists for people other than for itself. Given the work done by Archbishop Justin when he was Bishop of Durham on credit unions and food banks, and his concern about issues such as payday loans, I have no doubt that he will be at the forefront of pursuing concerns about economic deprivation and supporting marginalised communities.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
7. What assessment the Church Commissioners have made of the work of the Kettering street pastors.
Sir Tony Baldry
The Church of England provides national financial support to a number of street pastor groups around the country through the church and community funds. As many Members will know, the street pastors initiative is an independent and ecumenical initiative with some 200 groups across the country.
Mr Hollobone
Kettering is the nightclub capital of north Northamptonshire. Into that fray, every Saturday night and Sunday morning, between the hours of 11 pm and 3 am, the Kettering street pastors, led by their inspirational co-ordinator, Fiona de Boltz, send out six to 10 volunteers to offer faith-based reassurance, comfort and guidance, as well as practical assistance to vulnerable young people. Will my hon. Friend agree to visit Kettering to see the good work they do?
Sir Tony Baldry
It goes without saying that I would be extremely happy to go with my hon. Friend one Saturday night and see the work of the Kettering street pastors. Street pastors across the country do invaluable work in helping, caring and listening, and making our streets safer at nights and weekends.
Mr Speaker
We have heard from Mr Hollobone so we have got to hear from Mr Bone.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
It is an outrageous slur from my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) to say that Kettering is the nightclub capital of north Northamptonshire when everybody knows it is Wellingborough and Rushden. Street pastors in my area do a tremendous job, in particular the Full Gospel church in Rushden, which has led the way with a homeless shelter. Does my hon. Friend the Second Church Estates Commissioner agree?
Sir Tony Baldry
On my way to Kettering, I promise and undertake to call on my hon. Friend’s constituency and witness the work of the street pastors there as well.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
8. What assessment the Church Commissioners have made of the steps taken by the Government to support the role of churches and faith groups in their charitable work since May 2010.
Sir Tony Baldry
The charitable and voluntary work of the Church at local and national levels is so diverse and varied that it is difficult to generalise about the impact of recent Government policy on it. One positive development has been funding from the Department for Communities and Local Government for the Near Neighbours programme. That is managed by the Church of England through the Church Urban Fund and does much to promote understanding between people of different faith communities in different parts of the country.
Robert Halfon
Will my hon. Friend use his good offices to lobby the Government to review the public benefit test in terms of its application by the Charity Commission to religious groups, so that we may avoid the situation ever again in which the Christian Brethren are discriminated against but pagan religions are given charitable status?
Sir Tony Baldry
The previous Parliament decided that there should be a public benefit test for religious groups. If it is felt that the Charity Commission is applying the public benefit test incorrectly, I suspect that that is a matter for judicial review.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
9. What reports the Church Commissioners have received of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s plan for a pilgrimage of prayer around the province of Canterbury.
Sir Tony Baldry
Prior to the formal commencement of his public ministry and enthronement in Canterbury cathedral on 21 March, Archbishop Justin intends to tour parts of the province of Canterbury to meet its people and visit its diverse communities. From 14 March to 19 March, he will visit five cities and six cathedrals. Everyone is welcome to join in the journey of prayer at any point during the pilgrimage.
Mr Nuttall
I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. May I urge him to encourage the new Archbishop to include the deanery of Bury in his pilgrimage and, in particular, St Anne’s parish church, where I have the honour of serving as church warden?
Sir Tony Baldry
The Archbishop of Canterbury is visiting cities in the province of Canterbury and my hon. Friend’s constituency is of course in the province of York. I have no doubt that in due course the Archbishop of Canterbury will visit the province of York and I will draw to his attention my hon. Friend’s request.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
10. What assessment the Church Commissioners have made of the proposals contained in the General Synod document “Women in the episcopate: a new way forward”.
Sir Tony Baldry
As I am sure the hon. Lady is aware, there have been several developments since I last updated the House. The initial facilitator discussions have been completed and the consultation stage on a new document has just closed. The working group met earlier this week to consider 376 submissions and will meet again later this month. The intention, as I have mentioned to the House on occasions too numerous to particularise, is to have the House of Bishops give consideration to the results from the working party when it next meets in May.
Diana Johnson
“Women in the episcopate: a new way forward” could have been written by Sir Humphrey Appleby. It shows little urgency and, with both sides further apart, even less prospect of progress in July. Is it not time that the House took a stand and supported my ten-minute rule Bill next Wednesday on allowing women bishops?
Sir Tony Baldry
There are two serious points there. First, I promise the hon. Lady that the Church of England is moving as fast as humanly possible on this, and I can assure her that everyone from Archbishop Justin to every member of General Synod wishes to have this matter resolved as speedily as possible. Secondly, the House needs to be cautious about wanting to go back to the position prior to 1919, when matters of doctrine and worship of the Church of England were settled by Parliament. In 1919, Parliament decided that those were matters for the Church Assembly—now the General Synod—and I am not sure that Parliament would wish to go back to that pre-1919 position without giving it some serious thought.
Business of the House
(11 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Andrew Lansley)
The business for next week is as follows:
Monday 11 March—Second Reading of the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill.
Tuesday 12 March—Opposition day (19th allotted day). There will be a debate on tax fairness, followed by a debate on apprenticeships.
Both debates will arise on an Opposition motion.
Wednesday 13 March—Remaining stages of the Crime and Courts Bill [Lords] (day 1).
Thursday 14 March—Launch of a report from the Justice Select Committee on youth justice, followed by debate on a motion relating to accountability and transparency in the NHS. The subject for this debate was nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.
The provisional business for the following week will include:
Monday 18 March—Conclusion of remaining stages of the Crime and Courts Bill [Lords].
Tuesday 19 March—Proceedings on a Bill.
Wednesday 20 March—My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will open his Budget statement.
Thursday 21 March—Continuation of the Budget debate.
Friday 22 March—Continuation of the Budget debate.
I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for Thursday 14 March will be:
Thursday 14 March—Debate on the Foreign Affairs Committee report on the FCO’s human rights work in 2011, followed by general debate relating to Commonwealth day.
The House will also be aware that this morning I made a written statement announcing that Her Majesty the Queen will open a new Session of this Parliament on Wednesday 8 May 2013.
Ms Eagle
I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business and the date of the Queen’s Speech.
Tomorrow is international women’s day. To celebrate, the Government propose to remove the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s general equality duty from the statute book, having already slashed 70% of its funding. The Government have undermined the EHRC to such an extent that the United Nations has warned that it may lose its current A-list status as an independent body. It was therefore fitting that on Monday the other place blocked that attack on the commission’s powers to progress fairness. No wonder that the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) suggested in The Sun on Tuesday that her own Front Bench needed equality training. Will the Leader of the House confirm when we will see the amended Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill back in this place?
I think I have finally managed to discover something reliable about the Government: the regularity of their U-turns. On 14 February, I observed that with this Government we have a U-turn every 29 days. Following the Education Secretary’s embarrassing climbdown on GCSEs, I predicted that the next one was due to arrive on 8 March—a non-sitting Friday.
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Lady must resume her seat. We cannot have points of order in the middle of business questions. There will be an opportunity for points of order in due course and there are plenty of opportunities to contribute, but not in the middle of business questions.
Ms Eagle
As I said, I predicted that the next U-turn was due on 8 March—a non-sitting Friday. Therefore, may I thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting my request that this U-turn be brought forward to a sitting day by agreeing to Labour’s urgent question on the NHS competition regulations, which the Government withdrew ignominiously on Tuesday? It may have arrived like clockwork, but that U-turn took a quarter of a million names on a petition, thousands of doctors protesting and outrage across the House before the Government saw sense and realised that the British public will not tolerate our NHS being privatised.
The Leader of the House may recall that he told me last week that I was “not right” to say that the NHS competition regulations were a direct contradiction to the reassurances he gave during the passage of the Health and Social Care Act 2012. Yet only yesterday, the Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee reported that the regulations are defective for precisely that reason. Will he now concede that he was wrong? Will he tell me when we can expect to see a new version of the regulations, and can we have them published in draft first, to avoid even more chaos? I am setting my clock for the next 29 days, but I make a plea to the Government: if I can predict their U-turns, then surely so can they. Could they, perhaps, just think through their policies a bit more before they announce them?
Last week, I asked the Leader of the House to ensure that the Commons Committee stage of the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill will not be completed before the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards has even published its second report. This week, we learned that the Government intend to railroad the Bill through the Commons Committee stage by 18 April, well before the second report is expected to be published. How can the Leader of the House seriously expect MPs to scrutinise a Bill that is still only half-written? Will he stand up for the rights of this House and delay the Committee stage until after the Banking Commission has reported?
I am glad to see that our downgraded Chancellor has got his priorities right: he spent the week in Europe defending bankers’ bonuses. He gathered his allies around him ready for the fight and ended up in a minority of one. No one seems to respect the Chancellor anymore. Yesterday, the Business Secretary made a pre-emptive strike on the Prime Minister’s big economy speech by agreeing with the Opposition that we need a plan B, and the Governor of the Bank of England has accused the Chancellor of holding back the economy by not splitting up RBS. Most damningly, however, he has lost the respect of the British public, who see him ignoring the suffering of hard-working families, while he signs off six-figure tax cuts to 30,000 millionaires. Will the Leader of the House ask the Chancellor to start listening?
While the Chancellor is acting as a shop steward for the rich, another union is growing in strength: the national union of Ministers, united in their determination to dump further cuts to their Departments somewhere else. The Defence Secretary seems to have emerged as the new Arthur Scargill; and, from reports of the slap-down of the right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is emerging as the new Margaret Thatcher. Could the Leader of the House tell us whether the union is confident enough in its numbers to win a strike ballot? No wonder the Prime Minister has arranged to take a 28-day comfort break before he has to answer questions in the aftermath of the Budget statement.
Mr Lansley
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her response to the business statement.
I share the hon. Lady’s wish to mark international women’s day tomorrow. In that respect, I hope it is helpful that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development will make an important statement immediately following business questions. I am sure the hon. Lady and the House will also welcome this morning’s written ministerial statement by the Home Secretary informing the House that the violence against women and girls action plan will be published tomorrow, on international women’s day. That will enable us to underpin further the strategy we set out two and a half years ago, showing the progress we have made and demonstrating our ongoing commitment to ending violence against women and girls, which was also marked by the debates agreed by the Backbench Business Committee in the Chamber recently.
The shadow Leader of the House asked when the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill would return here from another place. That depends on when those in another place finish their consideration. To my knowledge they have not yet done so, but we will see that in due course.
I do not believe that the competition regulations as originally presented to this House were in any sense in conflict with the commitments given by Ministers. What is clear, however, is that those regulations are capable of being misunderstood and misrepresented—particularly the latter by the Opposition. In that respect, it is simpler and better to illustrate clearly two simple facts in the regulations. First, clinical commissioning groups have a duty, which overrides all other considerations, to secure the needs of their patients and the quality of services to their patients and to make choice available to them. Secondly, contrary to the situation under the last Government, in their “Principles and rules for co-operation and competition”, procurement should be conducted with a view to securing integrated services for patients. To that extent, what we are doing is based on the principles set out in early 2010 under the last Government, but we are enabling patients to be more confident that they will get integrated services responding to their needs with clinical leadership. That seems absolutely fine to me.
The hon. Lady asked about bankers’ bonuses and all that. We have to be clear about this. The Opposition might not think it is important now, but in the past the Labour Government used to rely almost entirely on the proceeds of financial services in the City to fund all their expenditure. Now the Opposition seem to have ignored the fact that, notwithstanding that, we need a competitive financial services industry in this country. Labour seems to have ignored the fact that it did nothing about bankers’ bonuses, which were four times as great under the last Government than they are under this Government. The Opposition seem to have ignored the fact that what the European Parliament is proposing could have perverse results, leading to higher salaries rather than bonuses, adding to companies’ fixed costs and reducing both their capacity to claw back bonuses if there is poor performance and the flexibility that brings. This is not a debate in principle about whether bankers should have bonuses or about the level—we are dealing with that. The issue is whether they are structured in a way that allows poor performance to be penalised without adding to the problems of the industry’s competitiveness in Europe.
The hon. Lady talked about U-turns. On a day when the Labour party is trying to contrive some kind of U-turn on its immigration policy, that was a bit of an own goal. I have not heard the shadow Leader of the House get up and apologise for the fact that the last Government simply lost control and ended up with a net migration figure of 250,000 a year. The coalition Government set themselves the task of bringing that net number down from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands, and the figures published last week demonstrate that net migration has fallen by a third in the past two and a half years. That shows that, in this respect as in so many others, the coalition Government are delivering on their promises.
Mr Speaker
Order. As usual, dozens of colleagues are seeking to catch my eye. I remind the House that there is a statement to follow from the Secretary of State for International Development, and then important proceedings on the Justice and Security Bill, so we are time-constrained. I must therefore exhort colleagues from the Back and Front Benches alike to speak pithily, beginning with Dr Thérèse Coffey.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
The A14 links my constituency with that of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. Will he allow a debate in Government time on road tolling, in that area but also more widely?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend and I share a close interest in this matter, and I declare a constituency interest. I will of course talk to my right hon. Friend at the Department for Transport. I cannot promise a debate immediately, but I know that the Government will take the opportunity to discuss this matter with the House ere long.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
May we have an urgent debate, or at least a statement, on the marine conservation zones? Given that £8.8 million of taxpayers’ money has been spent on consultation, and 127 such zones have been proposed, could the Leader of the House find out when all 127 of them will be designated?
Mr Lansley
The hon. Lady was no doubt in the Chamber for questions to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. That subject might have been raised in the course of those questions, but I hope she will forgive me for not being here at the time, so I do not know whether it was. If it was not, and if she particularly wishes to pursue the matter, may I suggest that she seeks an Adjournment debate in order to do so?
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
You were incredibly kind to try to accommodate everybody in DEFRA questions, Mr Speaker. In the light of recent events, including the ash tree disease, chalara, and all that has happened over food adulteration, will the Leader of the House see fit to review the time allocated to questions to the Church Commissioners and, especially, to questions to DEFRA, so that we can go back to having the full hour for DEFRA questions that we once enjoyed?
Mr Lansley
I understand the point that my hon. Friend is making. These matters are discussed through the usual channels and determined by the House collectively. I will of course take the opportunity to discuss with colleagues whether there is a case for any change.
Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)
May we have a debate on the millionaires’ tax cut, and can it be led by the Prime Minister so that he can clarify whether he will benefit directly from the cut?
Mr Lansley
The Opposition have decided to debate tax fairness next week, so the hon. Gentleman might like to contribute to that debate. Government Members will also be able to contribute to it, and to highlight the fact that somebody on the minimum wage who is working a full week will have seen their income tax halved under this Government as a result of the increase in the personal allowance.
Mike Crockart (Edinburgh West) (LD)
Today is world book day, and children up and down the country are going to school dressed as their favourite characters. I have joined in by dressing as Andrew Fraser, the Social Democratic party MP for Edinburgh Carlton in Jeffrey Archer’s book, “First Among Equals”, who ends up in a coalition Government in this very House. May we have a statement from the Department for Education on what it is doing to support school libraries, to ensure that such outlandish and far-fetched works of fiction are available to all?
Mr Lansley
I am sure that I am not alone in having found the school library my favourite place to be when I was at school. My hon. Friend might not realise that I, too, am in costume. I am taking the part of the Chief Whip—with apologies to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury—in my good friend Michael Dobbs’ book “House of Cards”. I am dressed as such.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
May we please have an urgent debate on the plight of Shaker Aamer, who remains the last British resident incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay? He is still there after 11 years. We have heard sympathetic statements from the Foreign Secretary, and the US and the UK are both saying that he has been cleared for release. We need to know why we do not seem to have enough influence to get this man back. He has never been charged with any crime, and he has been there for 11 years.
Mr Lansley
I am sure the hon. Lady is as aware as many others in the House are of the representations that Her Majesty’s Government have been making about those in Guantanamo Bay. I will of course ask my colleagues in the Foreign Office to respond directly to her about the issue she has raised, and she may like to raise it further at Foreign Office questions.
Mr Lee Scott (Ilford North) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend agree to a debate in Government time on the plight of the Tamil people at the end of the conflict in Sri Lanka and the innocent women and children who were murdered and lost their lives?
Mr Lansley
I am aware of my hon. Friend’s concern and his repeated efforts to support the Tamils who have suffered in the way he describes. I cannot promise an immediate debate, but I will draw what he said to the attention of my ministerial colleagues and get them to respond directly to him.
Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)
In a written question on 20 December 2011, I asked the Department for Work and Pensions about the number of people who had died while waiting for an appeal on their work capability assessments and received an answer that up until October 2011 there were 30. I asked the same question on 27 June last year and was told that up to the end of April 2012 there were 32. Last week, I received an answer from the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr Hoban), to the same question, worded in the same way, but with the period extended until the end of 2012, and was told that the information was not available. Those answers cannot all be correct. Given either that the earlier ones were inaccurate or that the later one was evasive, may we have an urgent statement from that Minister on the veracity of his answers to written questions?
Mr Lansley
The hon. Gentleman will know that I cannot comment in detail on that without notice, but I will of course talk to colleagues at the Department for Work and Pensions to see whether we can establish the reasons behind the different answers in respect of different periods.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
My right hon. Friend mentioned migration and I congratulate the Government on reducing net migration by a third. May we have a statement on how local education authorities can authenticate requests by parents from other EU countries for school places for their children? I understand that Bournemouth borough council—no different from other councils—has no requirement or indeed resource to check whether those parents are working legitimately in the UK. The system is subject to abuse.
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend raises an issue that many hon. Members feel we should take an early opportunity to report on. I know that my colleagues are working hard on a range of issues about access to benefits and services. That work is ongoing and will be reported to the House in due course. I will make sure that my hon. Friend is made aware of any response to the particular issue he raises.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
May we have a statement or debate in Government time in the near future on the uptake of benefits, particularly among senior citizens whose poverty levels run well over 15% higher in some regions? Senior citizens in Northern Ireland are missing out on up to £1 million a week by not taking up benefits, so more needs to be done to encourage take-up.
Mr Lansley
The right hon. Gentleman has an opportunity to raise that matter with Work and Pensions Ministers on Monday. If I may say so, this Government have worked hard to try to secure that. I am aware that one of the benefits—if I can be forgiven the pun—of universal credit is that it will establish a more secure basis to give people access to the benefits to which they are entitled.
Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)
This week, we had the fantastic news that Jaguar Land Rover is going to invest a further £150 million, creating an extra 700 jobs at the engine plant that the company is building in my South Staffordshire constituency. May we have a debate on how we can continue to build on the success of the automotive industry, which is bringing such benefits not just to the west midlands but to the whole UK economy?
Mr Lansley
It was encouraging news to hear about the 10% increase in new car sales over the course of the earliest part of this year in comparison with the previous year. What is also tremendously encouraging about Jaguar Land Rover is its dramatic success in international markets and exports. The fact that that has been reflected in the investment in the engine plant near Wolverhampton which my hon. Friend mentioned is something that is greatly supported right across the House.
Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
May we have a statement from the Government about when they will sign the maritime labour convention? Enough countries signed last August to make it international law this August, and the UK Chamber of Shipping and others are warning that our failure to do so would seriously disadvantage British shipping internationally. The Government support the measure and led the negotiations on it at the International Maritime Organisation, but for some reason it is mired in bureaucratic difficulty between Departments. I should be very grateful if the Leader of the House would look into the matter, and tell us whether we can have a statement.
Mr Lansley
I know of the support that the Government have given to the negotiations. I hope that one of my roles can involve entering the innards of that bureaucracy to try to ensure that the process works more smoothly and effectively. I will of course inquire of my colleagues to see what we can do to help the hon. Gentleman, and to succeed in the way that he describes.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
May we have an urgent debate on the uncontrolled immigration that was allowed by the last Government and, in particular, on the effect that it has had in reducing the wages of the lower paid? This is a serious issue, given people’s current problems with the cost of living, and it needs to be looked into urgently.
Mr Lansley
In the last quarter, there has been a large rise in employment among UK nationals and a substantially smaller growth in employment among non-UK nationals. While we must ensure that those who come here to work are not subject to abuse in the sense of being paid less than the minimum wage or experiencing other poor conditions, I think we can feel increasingly confident that we are enabling more people in this country who are seeking jobs to acquire them.
John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)
May we have a debate, or at least a statement, on the current plight of those who pay electricity bills? We have heard that the big six are raising their prices again, and now we hear that they are also making excessive profits. Is it not time that we did something about that?
Mr Lansley
The Energy Bill has completed its Committee stage and will return to the Floor of the House in due course, when it will become clear to the hon. Gentleman that—as we have discussed previously—the Government are taking the power to require that consumers are given access to the lowest tariffs available. That, along with the electricity market reform which is encapsulated in the Bill, is a tremendous step forward.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will be aware of today’s ruling in the High Court about the children’s heart unit at Leeds general infirmary. I am sure that he would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all those who have campaigned so vigorously on the issue, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), whose campaigning has been outstanding. Will he also ensure that a Minister comes to the House as soon as possible to make a statement about the implications of the ruling, and about how the Government intend to proceed from now on?
Mr Lansley
I pay tribute to Members who, as my hon. Friend has said, have been assiduous in supporting their constituents and expressing their concerns. Those concerns are understandable, but let me reiterate that—as I think has been widely acknowledged—it is necessary to reduce the number of units responsible for children’s heart surgery in order deliver sustainable, secure, high-quality care for those children in the future.
It is clear from this morning’s decision that, while the judge has determined that the application for judicial review must succeed, what that means in terms of an order relating to the process itself is for future determination. I think it best for me to wait and see what the judge says in relation to the process before pressing my colleagues to make any kind of statement about how the joint committee of primary care trusts might proceed.
Mr Tom Harris (Glasgow South) (Lab)
Whatever urgent debates the Leader of the House wants to arrange for next week, I must tell him that I may not be present, because the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority has cancelled my travel card on the basis that I failed to submit my January conciliation form. It was submitted—I know that, because according to the online system it is “awaiting validation”, so it is clear that someone in IPSA has seen the form and typed those words—but IPSA has cancelled the card nevertheless.
It is unacceptable when this terminally abominable, incompetent organisation fails to pay the simplest expenses, but surely, when it starts to interfere with MPs’ ability to come to the House and return to their constituencies, that is something about which the Leader of the House and every Member should be concerned.
Mr Speaker
I understood what the hon. Gentleman said. I think he is seeking a statement or debate on the matter. [Interruption.] I know he wants his card back, but that does not of itself render his remarks orderly. They will be rendered orderly if there is a request for a debate and I am sure there was such a request; I probably just did not hear it.
Mr Lansley
I am sure we all want to enjoy the hon. Gentleman’s presence here next week. To that effect, I will draw directly to the attention of IPSA the points he has made and the cautious and modest way in which he expressed himself. I think there are other Members across the House who have found themselves in similar circumstances and who have some sympathy with him.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I rise somewhat nervously to draw attention to a widespread concern about the conduct of the Government’s business. I am sure the Leader of the House would join me in congratulating the Backbench Business Committee on providing time to debate an aspect of the Francis report, but when are we going to have a full day’s debate in Government time on the Francis report? The Leveson inquiry gave rise to just such a debate in Government time. Surely our relations with the press are less important than what has happened at Mid Staffordshire hospital and its implications for the health service as a whole. We would not want the House of Commons to give the wrong impression about what we think is important.
Mr Lansley
I am not sure I agree with my hon. Friend that the debate the Backbench Business Committee has scheduled for Thursday of next week is on one aspect of the Francis inquiry report. I think it is about accountability and transparency in the national health service. He will have seen on the Order Paper the nature of the motion presented. I do not think it constrains debate at all, and it is perfectly appropriate for us to proceed on the basis of the House considering this matter next Thursday, as the business papers make clear. I hope my colleagues will respond to the Francis inquiry in the course of this month, which in itself will give us a basis for considering what processes follow from that.
Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)
More than 40 employment agencies are operating in Corby, which is disproportionate. Having met representatives of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills this week, I am particularly concerned that there are now plans to cut the employment agency standards inspectorate, which protects the most vulnerable in my community, particularly in workplaces. May we have a debate on this?
Mr Lansley
The hon. Gentleman may by all means seek to secure an Adjournment debate on these issues, and I will certainly talk to my BIS colleagues about the points he raises, but in this context he might like to celebrate the fact that employment in this country has risen by over 800,000 since the election and more than 1 million private sector jobs have been created. If his constituency’s experience is contrary to the national trend, he might like to consider what further measures to stimulate employment will be needed in his constituency, especially as the area in general is seeing employment growth.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
May we have a statement from the Justice Secretary about the need to restore honesty in sentencing, with particular reference to the fact that convicted terrorists stand to benefit from being released halfway through their sentences, with the extra burden that will inevitably place earlier than necessary on the police and security services?
Mr Lansley
As my hon. Friend knows, the type and length of a sentence imposed is a matter for the courts, but severe maximum penalties, including life sentences, are available for terrorism offences and terrorists frequently receive long custodial sentences. He will also know that extended sentences imposed on those convicted of a specified terrorist offence attract eligibility for parole consideration at the two-thirds point of the custodial period, with automatic release only once the custodial period has been served in full. I can assure him that our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice is keen to ensure public protection and keeps these matters under close review.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
The Children and Families Bill has much to commend it, but as it goes through Committee the bedroom tax will hit foster carers, adoptive parents, disabled children and some children with special educational needs, all of whom stand to benefit from the provisions in the Bill. Will the Leader of the House use his influence to protect the children affected by the bedroom tax so that the widely supported measures in the Bill are not completely undermined by actions elsewhere in government?
Mr Lansley
The hon. Gentleman is right. Of course, the Children and Families Bill has a great deal to commend it, including its important provisions for the support of families with children with special educational needs. I am sure that he was in the Chamber and heard the responses given by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to a series of questions yesterday. My right hon. Friend made it clear that we must understand not only the context of the £23 billion that is payable in housing benefit and the need to deal with that but how the change is being undertaken in a fair way. It is important to recognise that it brings the social housing sector into line with practice in the private rented sector in a way that offers not only access to a hardship fund but specific exemptions for some of the most vulnerable categories of tenants.
Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
May we have a debate on the perspicacious and insightful fifth report of the Procedure Committee, which recommends that the Second Church Estates Commissioner and the other colleagues who answered questions earlier today should be allowed to make statements to the House on serious matters of national importance?
Mr Lansley
Yes, and, if I may, I will seek time, as it is our practice to do, to try to secure an opportunity for the House to consider matters recommended by Select Committees relating to House business. We will discuss that through the usual channels in the normal way, but I entirely recognise my hon. Friend’s point, although, as he will recognise, only in extremely rare circumstances will it be felt appropriate for such a statement to be made.
Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)
The Leader of the House has already, in passing, mentioned exports and it is vital that economic recovery, when it finally comes, should be export-led. Sterling’s recent dramatic fall in value should, at the very least, help the competitiveness of our exports, but net trade actually fell in the last quarter and the Bank of England has described our trade performance as disappointing. May we therefore have a debate on the crucial subject of trade and exports to see how the Government can raise their game?
Mr Lansley
As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Government do not have a policy for the value of the pound in international markets. We have a policy to support growth, enterprise and employment in this country and we can see how employment has increased and how we are supporting the private sector in wealth creation through deregulation measures, the reduction of corporate tax rates and the dramatic increase announced by the Chancellor in access to investment allowances. There are issues with exports, particularly, as the hon. Gentleman will be aware, because of the dramatic reduction in demand in the eurozone, which is hitting so many economies that are dependent on it. At the same time, in the first two years of this Government, British exports of goods have increased by 47% to China, by 33% to India, by 33% to Brazil and by 134% to Russia. As he rightly says, we need therefore to focus on stimulating that activity. The Chancellor’s autumn statement gave very specific additional support to UK Trade & Investment to do exactly that.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Yesterday was estimates day, and as usual we voted through countless billions of pounds of public expenditure with no vote and no debate. Yesterday, however, something different happened. My hon. Friend the Member for Southport (John Pugh) tried to talk about estimates on estimates day, but he was immediately ruled out of order and told to get back to medical implants. As it happens, we have produced a report for the Chancellor on how to improve the accountability of estimates to Parliament and it is sitting in the Library. May we have a debate in Government time about how we can talk about estimates on estimates day?
Mr Lansley
I was present in the House and I think my hon. Friend is referring to the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (John Pugh) said that he believed that if he had sought to talk about estimates, he would have been ruled out of order, although I do not believe that the Chair issued any ruling at all. As the House will know, the determination of the subjects for debate on those two estimates days was conducted by the Liaison Committee. I have read the report published by my hon. Friends the Members for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) and for Southport. There is a fair point, which my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and I have discussed on the Public Accounts Commission, about improving and enhancing the scrutiny of public expenditure by this House in a number of ways. I shall not talk about what they might be, but I share the view that we should find an opportunity in the future to try to enhance that.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House arrange for the Prime Minister to come to the House and make an urgent statement so that we can do a fact check on his answer to me yesterday, which was inaccurate when he claimed that severely disabled children, pensioners and people needing round-the-clock care were exempt from the council tax? With reference to children, those families with a second spare bedroom will face the bedroom tax. The only reason that some severely disabled children are exempted is a Court of Appeal ruling which, perversely, the Government are challenging.
Mr Lansley
I think that when the hon. Gentleman referred to council tax, he was referring to housing benefit. [Interruption.] Be that as it may, the hon. Gentleman and I heard what the Prime Minister said, and the Prime Minister is assiduous in ensuring that what he says to the House is accurate. If ever what he said was not accurate, he would of course correct it.
Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)
There is glorious news coming from the High Court this morning that campaigners for the children’s heart unit have won their case against the review. It is a tremendous victory for the parents and families and I pay tribute to them. It clearly confirms the view that the review is flawed. The judge said that the review team made an ill-judged and fatal mistake in not revealing how the Kennedy sub-scores were compromised. Recognising that there will be a further judgment, may we have a statement on the day of that judgment or the very next day so that we can get the matter resolved once and for all for those patients?
Mr Lansley
As I said before, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and colleagues across the House who have been assiduous in representing their constituents’ interests. I will not repeat what I said, but there will be a follow-on decision by the Court relating to what this decision means in terms of the process itself. As the process is conducted not by the Government, but by an independent joint committee of primary care trusts, it will in the first instance be a matter for it. I would not encourage my hon. Friend to assume that it is the responsibility of Ministers at that moment to do other than to report the facts to the House. It is not their responsibility at this point to determine the progress of the review.
Mr Speaker
Order. There is still heavy pressure on time. I am keen to accommodate remaining colleagues but I must reissue my appeal for extreme brevity, hopefully to be exemplified by Mr Andrew Miller.
Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House organise an urgent debate on the use of English in the House, following the new euphemism that we heard yesterday, when the bedroom tax became the spare room subsidy? I remind the right hon. Gentleman that when the Conservative party changed the community charge to the poll tax, it cost them a leader.
Mr Lansley
When it comes to language in the House, we should first set out not to call things something that they are not. Calling something a tax when it is not a tax is not a good use of language.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Has my right hon. Friend seen my early-day motions 1097 and 1157 about the cost of petrol and diesel and fuel poverty?
[That this House notes the action that the Government has taken to cut the cost of petrol and diesel, with a cut in fuel duty in 2011, two freezes in 2012 and the scrapping of the planned rise in January 2013; further notes, however, that rocketing fuel bills are causing misery for millions, and that this matters because fuel duty is a tax on everything, hitting food prices, bus prices and everyone who commutes to work; further notes that fuel duty hits the poorest the hardest, and that many workers in Harlow constituency and elsewhere are spending a tenth of their income just filling up the family car; and therefore calls on the Government to do everything in its power to stop the planned September rise in fuel duty and to help keep prices down.]
May we have a debate on petrol prices and fuel poverty, following the report by the RAC Foundation that the poorest are paying 20% of their income to fill up the family car, whereas the richest are paying 10%?
Mr Lansley
Yes, I have seen the early-day motions to which my hon. Friend refers. I cannot promise an immediate debate but as he knows, this is a matter that we have considered in the House and no doubt we will have an opportunity to do so again soon. I know that he believes, as I do, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has taken important steps to ensure that petrol at the pumps is now 10p a litre lower in price than it would have been if the fuel escalator under the previous Government had been carried forward.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
During the recess I tried to live on £18 a week, which is what my constituents will have once the bedroom tax is introduced. I found that I ran out of food before the end of the week. Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on the bedroom tax and its impact on nutrition?
Mr Lansley
I think the House had an opportunity, on a motion tabled by the nationalist parties, to debate the housing benefit structure and the under-occupancy deduction. If the hon. Lady and her colleagues felt so strongly that that was the most important issue to debate, I am surprised that they did not choose to bring it forward for debate next Tuesday, as they could have done.
Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)
The Financial Services Authority authorised Barclays bank to use KPMG and Deloitte as independent reviewers of the 40,000 interest rate swap agreements mis-sold to small and medium-sized businesses. May we have a debate about the true independent City law firms, Eversheds and TLT, which Barclays is using as its fact finders to interview by phone, for sometimes up to three hours, many of the customers classified as “unsophisticated? They are discouraged from having their solicitors present, refused a transcript and often feel that they have been cross-examined. Those tactics mean that the bank’s lawyers might be breaching the solicitors’ code of conduct and only go to reinforce the bank’s reputation for bullying.
Mr Lansley
I think that the House will share my hon. Friend’s concern about the companies that have been affected by interest rate swap mis-selling. I will not attempt to answer the question she rightly asks, but I will ask our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills to write to her directly about it.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
The announcement earlier today about the permanent closure of Daw Mill colliery will have far-reaching consequences not only for the 650 people working there, E.ON, Ratcliffe power station and the 1.5 million tonnes of coal the colliery generated each year, but for the whole future of UK Coal, the British coal industry and the country’s energy supply. Why has the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change not seen fit to come to the House today to make a statement on the matter?
Mr Lansley
I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the hard work of all those who responded so promptly to this major incident at Daw Mill colliery. It was, and continues to be, a serious incident. With regard to helping UK Coal, the Energy Minister met the company to discuss the matter on Monday, and a cross-Government team led by the Department of Energy and Climate Change is working with it. I will, of course, talk to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State about when it will be appropriate to report to the House on the work the Government are doing, together with UK Coal, to respond to the situation.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
May we have a debate on the importance of the City of London in creating jobs and wealth and, in particular, growing both public and private sector pensions, making Britain a wealthier country than it would be if we listened to the Opposition?
Mr Lansley
Yes, I am with my hon. Friend on that. I think that such a debate would be important, if the opportunity arose. It would be an occasion to discuss the issue, rather than trying to devise some political advantage, in circumstances in which everyone knows that it was the Labour party that was responsible for the banking crisis that has so afflicted this country. Instead of apologising for that, Labour Members are trying to take political advantage when they know perfectly well that we should actually be working together to ensure that we have effective regulation of the banks, including bankers’ bonuses and not the kind of regulation that could lead to higher costs and reduced competitiveness.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
Yesterday we saw a leaked internal report by the Scottish Government showing that even Scottish National party Ministers have huge concerns about the stability of the Scottish economy should Scotland become independent. May we have an urgent debate on the report, which would show once and for all that Scotland is better together?
Mr Lansley
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because I must confess that I was unaware of the report to which he refers, but I will certainly seek an opportunity to read it. I cannot promise an immediate debate, but I think that, as we move towards to next year’s referendum, it is very important that we have the kind of debate he seeks in this House and across the country.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
Did the Leader of the House see the launch this week of the “Love Food Hate Waste” campaign here in Parliament? Given that the average family throws away food worth £270 each year, may we have a debate on raising awareness of the issue and on how effective packaging and labelling can reduce the amount of food wasted?
Mr Lansley
Yes, my hon. Friend makes a good point. Throwing away food not used in time is costing consumers £6.7 billion a year—£270 for the average household. Only about one in seven consumers realises that packaging can play an important role in protecting food in our homes. The Fresher for Longer campaign launched earlier this week can do a great deal of good in reducing food waste and highlighting how people can ensure that they eat food that is in good condition.
Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)
This week the Daycare Trust revealed that child care costs across Britain are rising by £5 a week, or 6%—twice the cost of living. May we have a statement on why the Government are still delaying bringing forward plans through the tax and benefits system to help families struggling with declining living standards and child care costs?
Mr Lansley
I was interested in the figures published by the Daycare Trust and understand the concerns of many families. I therefore hope that the hon. Gentleman will support not only the measures that have already been brought forward but those recently announced by the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), which are designed to give families exactly that kind of help in meeting child care costs while maintaining quality.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
May we have a statement from the Minister responsible for the Defence Infrastructure Organisation? I remain very concerned that, in making the decision about the disposal of Wilton barracks, an optimistic assessment is being made of the local authority’s likely attitude towards excessive housing on the site when a locally supported bid has already met the needs of the local plan. It is crucial that local opinion is respected and that the Ministry of Defence does not accept a speculative bid that will not, in the end, be realisable.
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend raises an important point for his constituents, and I completely understand it. I am pleased to assure him that the Ministry of Defence did take local opinion into account before seeking outline planning consent. That consent has now been granted, and the site is being offered for sale on the open market by formal tender in a joint sale with a private landowner. My hon. Friend will understand that as the bids were received on 28 February and are being evaluated, they remain commercially confidential for now. However, I am told that the MOD is confident of a sale being completed shortly.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
On 12 February, during the Environment Secretary’s statement on horsemeat, at column 742 of the Official Report, I asked him whether he had ordered the testing of gelatine and gelatine-based products for horse DNA given that they would extend to food such as children’s confectionery. The Secretary of State told the House that I had asked a good question but that these were matters for the Food Standards Agency. I therefore wrote to the agency immediately after the statement. To date, I am still awaiting an acknowledgement, let alone a reply. Will the Leader of the House secure a debate in Government time about the accountability of Executive agencies, as it seems that Ministers are unwilling to answer for agencies during statements and agencies are unwilling to reply to Members of this House?
Mr Lansley
I will of course seek to help the hon. Gentleman in getting a reply to his question. However, the Food Standards Agency is not an Executive agency; it is a non-ministerial Government Department that is accountable to this House through Ministers at the Department of Health, of whom I used to be one, so I fully understand the matter. I will talk to my hon. Friends to secure the response that he is looking for.
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
I am sure that the whole House will be united in its support for the 650 workers of Daw Mill colliery and their families following today’s announcement by UK Coal of its decision to close the mine and suddenly make most of the work force redundant following the recent underground fire, which is yet to abate. I know that the Energy Minister is doing all that he can to support the work force during this difficult time. May we have a debate in Government time on energy policy and the vital role that the coal industry plays in the UK?
Mr Lansley
I completely understand how concerned my hon. Friend is, as are other Members, about the circumstances of the continuing fire underground and the closure of Daw Mill colliery. Of course, jobs are at risk as a consequence of that, notwithstanding that they have been reduced in recent months through a process of voluntary redundancies. As I said, not only Ministers at the Department of Energy and Climate Change but Ministers across the Government are seeking to work with UK Coal to try to ensure that we provide all the assistance we can. I hope that there will soon be an opportunity to update the House about what that response can be.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Will the Leader of the House agree to a debate or a statement on the recent disclosure that one in four of the UK’s top companies pays no tax at all, while an ordinary person on a lower wage continues to pay tax each and every week of the year?
Mr Lansley
The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that the general anti-avoidance measure will come into force in April—an important strengthening of our reduction of tax avoidance. If the hon. Gentleman does not have the opportunity to discuss these issues beforehand, he might find that they are relevant to the debate on the Budget.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
We always knew that the decision to close the children’s heart surgery unit in Leeds was flawed, biased and unacceptably opaque, and today we have found out that it was unlawful. In addition, the safe and sustainable consultation as a whole has been declared unlawful and the conduct of the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts has been called into question and accused of failing in its duty. I say to the right hon. Gentleman that we must have a statement in this House, because the whole review is now in chaos, and part of that statement should say that JCPCT members should never take part again in any consultation on major changes to the health service.
Mr Lansley
The High Court’s decision on the failure to disclose the sub-scores of the Kennedy scoring system was announced only this morning, but the judge has not made a further decision on the implications for the review itself or on the order she might make in that regard. I reiterate to my hon. Friend that it would be premature for Ministers to make a statement. Indeed, it is not for Ministers to make a decision in the first instance, as this is an independent review conducted by primary care trusts. They should decide how to proceed once the court has made its decision.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
Twice the Leader of the House has given sympathy to those people at Daw Mill colliery who have lost their jobs. UK Coal owns other mines—not many, but they are still in business—and it may fold up completely as a result of the Daw Mill closure. It is one of the main employers left in the coal-mining industry. Do the Leader of the House and this Government want to be in power when the remaining part of the coal industry in England is closed down?
Mr Lansley
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the closure at Daw Mill is the result of the catastrophic fire. I reiterate to him and the House that Ministers are in direct contact with UK Coal. The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), met UK Coal on Monday and is co-ordinating a cross-Government response. Some 1,300 people are employed at UK Coal’s other sites, Thorseby and Kellingley, and the company believe that they remain viable operations. On that basis, it does them no good to speculate in a damaging way about the viability of those operations.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
May we have an urgent statement from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury so that he can inform the House to which media outlets the Liberal Democrats will leak the Budget? Right hon. and hon. Members will then know what papers to buy and what television programmes to watch.
Mr Lansley
I think I can assure my hon. Friend that Treasury Ministers and others will respect the confidentiality of the Budget statement.
Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
Over the past two years, Conservative-led Lancashire county council has approved the construction of four brand new primary schools: Laneshaw Bridge primary, a new Church school in Barnoldswick, St Paul’s primary and Whitefield infant school in Nelson, where I am a school governor. May we have a debate on investment in primary school buildings, so that I and other hon. Members can welcome these developments and raise the cases of other schools where investment is still needed?
Mr Lansley
I think that many Members throughout the House will have been pleased by and welcomed the announcement by the Minister for Schools of additional funding for capital projects in schools. Lancashire county council has been allocated basic need funding totalling £112.6 million for the period 2011 to 2015 to support the provision of additional pupil places. In Lancashire, as in many places throughout the country, that will ensure that the condition of schools is improved. It also responds to the demographic pressure moving through the school system at the moment. It is very welcome.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
Being prevented from talking about Government estimates on estimates day would have puzzled Franz Kafka. Does the Leader of the House recognise that the report on improving parliamentary scrutiny of the nation’s finances mentioned by the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) was actually commissioned by the Chancellor because he did not think that that scrutiny was good enough?
Mr Lansley
Yes, my hon. Friend is right. The report has been published, but it would be premature for me to say anything about how we might respond or take the issue forward. There is no question, however, but that we want to enhance scrutiny; this is not an Executive who want to inhibit it. In many ways, we have enhanced the scrutiny of the Executive by the House, and I hope that in this respect we can go further.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Given that the number of applications from hon. Members for Adjournment debates always exceeds supply and given that we are now going to sit on Friday 22 March, will my right hon. Friend seek to enhance his reputation for parliamentary innovation by effectively making that day a Wednesday in Westminster Hall, so that there might be a full programme of Adjournment debates to enhance the House’s ability to hold Ministers to account.
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend will know that the House debated this matter and decided last night to sit on Friday 22 March in order to continue the Budget debate. It is scheduled for that purpose, and I know that many Members will want to contribute to that debate, so I would simply limit it to that.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
For the third year running, the NHS staff survey at Medway Maritime hospital in my constituency has reported an increase in the number of staff members experiencing bullying. Will the Leader of the House allow an urgent debate or statement on this matter?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend knows that the NHS staff survey this year shows an increased proportion of members of staff who feel they know how to raise issues, but unfortunately no corresponding increase—in fact, a very slight reduction—in the number who fear that their position might be prejudiced if they do so, although the majority still feel that they can and would raise these issues. As he knows, we have to arrive at a position where all staff feel entirely confident and empowered to raise any issues affecting the safety of patients and if necessary—although it should not be necessary—to blow the whistle if they are not being listened to.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
In responding to a debate in Westminster Hall yesterday, the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), made clear his view that consideration of planning approval for onshore wind farms should take place at the same time as planning approval for essential associated infrastructure. In mid-Wales, however, a planning inspector appointed by the Minister has taken exactly the opposite view. May we have a statement outlining the Government’s position?
Mr Lansley
I will ask the Minister of State to respond to my hon. Friend on that issue and, if there is any question of more general application, to report to the House.
UK’s Development Work (Girls and Women)
(11 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for International Development (Justine Greening)
With permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the UK’s international development work to support girls and women.
Tomorrow, we will mark international women’s day, which takes place amidst the negotiations of the UN Commission on the Status of Women in New York. The focus of this year’s CSW is on eliminating all violence against women and girls and sending the strongest international signal that the routine, everyday violence perpetrated against girls and women globally must end. The outcome of this year’s CSW is by no means assured, however, and last year’s meeting failed to reach any conclusions, so the UK Government have been working tirelessly to avoid a similar outcome this year.
This week, the Under-Secretary of State for International Development, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), has been attending the meeting in New York, and last night I spoke to our ambassador to the United Nations to identify what more the UK could do. Both I and my hon. Friend have been playing our role in making the case for significantly upping our work in this area. We have also been making the necessary calls and co-ordinating supporters to get a successful outcome. We cannot afford to repeat the failure of last year.
Alongside that key opportunity at the CSW, I want to inform the House of my intention to step up the UK Government’s support for girls and women in the world’s poorest countries. We have already helped to make great strides globally. Since 2011, our country has supported more than 2.5 million girls to go to primary school and a quarter of a million to make the transition to secondary school. We have helped nearly three quarters of a million women to access financial services, helped to secure property and land rights for nearly a quarter of a million women, and supported 1 million additional women to use modern methods of family planning.
It is also appropriate this week to underline how urgent and great is the need for further sustained action. Around the world, one in three girls and women will be beaten or raped in their lifetime. Fewer than 20% of girls in sub-Saharan Africa have the chance to go to secondary school. A third of girls in the developing world marry before the age of 18, some as young as seven. Despite performing two thirds of the world’s work, women earn only 10% of the income and own only 1% of the property. Women represent only 20% of the world’s political leaders. I do not believe that there can be sustained development when only half a country’s population is involved.
The evidence shows that when the potential of girls and women is unleashed, there are incredible returns for girls and women themselves, and for whole societies and economies. Investing in girls and women is the smart thing to do. An extra year of primary schooling for girls increases their wages by up to 20% and the return is even higher for secondary school. Such education means that women marry later and have fewer children, and that there are better health outcomes for the children they do have.
Investing in women and girls is also the right thing to do. It is a matter of universal basic human rights. I believe that it represents the greatest unmet challenge of our time. The challenge is about three things to my mind: choice, so that girls and women can choose when they have children and how many; control, so that women and girls are free from violence and can take control of their working lives and incomes; and voice, so that girls and women can be heard and are able to speak out safely in their communities and at the national level. I intend to target DFID’s efforts relentlessly on improving the lives of the poorest girls and women in those crucial areas.
On choice, we will honour the commitment that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made at the London summit on family planning last year. In addition, this week DFID is releasing funding for contraceptives that will help avert about 2.6 million unintended pregnancies, prevent the deaths of more than 4,500 women during pregnancy and childbirth, and avoid almost 65,000 infant deaths, and we will look to do more still.
On Afghanistan, I have decided that the UK country plan will include tackling violence against women and girls as a country strategic priority. As troop draw-down takes place, gains must be built on and not lost.
DFID is developing an ambitious new £35 million programme to combat female genital mutilation and cutting—the biggest ever investment in eradicating the practice. We want to help end the practice in a generation.
I have established a research and innovation fund to drive forward successful initiatives to tackle violence against women and girls, and new programmes that respond to the specific needs of girls and women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Syrian refugees.
Later this year, I will launch an international call to action on violence against women and girls in humanitarian emergencies. An event in the autumn will bring agencies, donors and advocates together to ensure that we all collectively up our game. I have written to the UN emergency relief co-ordinator, Valerie Amos, and the UN Secretary-General to call on them to put the needs of women and girls clearly at the heart of humanitarian programmes, including in Syria, where the number of refugees has passed the terrible 1 million landmark.
Finally, on control, the ability of girls and women to earn an income and control how they spend it is also essential, but the evidence on what works in this area urgently needs building. That is why I have just launched a new partnership with the World Bank for a “gender innovation lab” to test what works in terms of giving girls and women control over their economic lives. On participation, research clearly demonstrates that women’s political participation achieves real changes. So I have agreed funding for a new leadership for change programme, supporting the leadership skills of girls and women and the opportunities for them to make a difference in their local communities and nationally.
As we continue our work on those issues, we will also reach out to new partners. I know that we cannot simply preach to the converted; we need to do what works, working with whoever we can to make it work on the ground. I am therefore establishing an expert advisory group on girls and women, involving people from different worlds and including leaders from the human rights community, the private sector and civil society to help shape my Department’s work in this area.
During our G8 presidency, we are working across government in support of the Foreign Secretary’s vital preventing sexual violence initiative to ensure that G8 members sign up to pledges on this unacceptably neglected issue. On the post-2015 agenda, we will work to ensure that issues of voice, choice and control for girls and women are central in the new framework. I believe that is critical if we are to become the generation that eradicates absolute poverty.
Britain needs to play a leading role globally, not just by effort but by example. We must all ask the searching questions and never turn a blind eye to women treated unacceptably in our own country. Yesterday’s shocking EU report highlighted that there are 65,000 victims of female genital mutilation in the UK and a further 30,000 at risk. I pay tribute to the work that my ministerial colleague the International Development Under-Secretary has done, not just at home, but abroad, in tackling this issue. However, we have to be prepared to fight that battle here in the UK as well as internationally. So I believe that today, the day the before international women’s day, is a key opportunity for the House to come together in support of seeking irreversible gains in rights for girls and women and an end to violence for girls and women. I know that hon. Members will wish to send a collective signal of support for this goal—they will want it to come not just from the Government, but from Parliament as a whole—and I commend this statement to the House.
Mr Ivan Lewis (Bury South) (Lab)
I thank the right hon. Lady for advance sight of her statement, and from the outset may I make it clear that we support the important work that she and the Foreign Secretary are doing on the crucial issues of the rights of girls and women, and tackling violence against women?
It is an indisputable fact that there is a direct correlation between women’s rights and progress in developing countries, especially in conflict-ridden and fragile states. Of course, sustainable investment matters, which is why I want to begin by asking the Secretary of State how she can justify the Tory-led Government’s consistent failure to enshrine the UK’s 0.7% commitment in law. Last Friday, a Tory Back Bencher once again blocked the progress of the private Member’s Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mark Hendrick). May I remind the right hon. Lady that her party’s election manifesto promised to legislate on this in the first Session of Parliament? Is it not time she reminded her Back Benchers —left, centre and Tea party—that they each stood on that manifesto at the last election? If the measure is not in the Queen’s Speech, that will be not only a broken promise, but yet more evidence that although the Prime Minister may still be in office, he is no longer in power.
On the eve of international women’s day, it is right that we think about how UK aid can be focused to address the scourge of violence against women and girls. On my most recent visit to eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo with World Vision, I saw for myself the terrible impact that sexual violence has on the lives of women, their families and their communities. One woman told me how three soldiers from a militia group had gang-raped her and left her for dead. In the same attack her husband and three children were taken away and she never saw them again. Every day, that woman and many like her cope with emotional and physical scars that may lessen over time but will never heal. It is essential that we tackle the culture of impunity, as well as the underlying causes of violence against women. More needs to be done to help women whose lives are blighted by violence and conflict. Will the Secretary of State say what her Department is doing to encourage the involvement of women in peacemaking and political reconciliation design and processes, and in bringing to justice those who use rape as a weapon of war?
International co-operation and co-ordination to prevent sexual violence in conflict on the ground is central to any response. What are the Government doing to address the fact that action against gender-based violence internationally remains chronically underfunded? Will she join me in expressing support for the One Billion Rising campaign led by Eve Ensler? Organisations such as UN Women have great potential but they do not have the long-term financial support required to fulfil their important mandate. The aim is to join up the work done across the UN on gender equality and women’s empowerment, pooling resources to increase its impact and reach. As a member of the UN Women executive, will the Secretary of State tell the House what steps the UK Government are taking to encourage other donors—private or public—to help ensure that UN Women has the core funding it needs to continue its work and support women’s empowerment and gender equality?
I am reassured to hear that the Under-Secretary of State for International Development is taking a leading role in UN negotiations on the UN Commission on the Status of Women in New York. Will she please clarify what specific outcomes she is seeking to achieve and what criteria she will use to judge success?
The Secretary of State is right to focus on giving women choice through quality educational opportunities and access to essential family planning and education programmes that will help avert unintended pregnancies and prevent deaths. As she is aware, however, US restrictions specifically related to abortion mean that humanitarian aid managed by the International Committee of the Red Cross cannot be used—shamefully—for victims of rape. Norway has made a bilateral request to the US that it lift the abortion ban on humanitarian aid for women raped in war as a matter of US compliance with the Geneva conventions. Will the UK follow Norway’s example and make similar representations to our US allies?
I welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement of a new programme to combat female genital mutilation. Like I and every Member of the House she will have been horrified by the statistics that were revealed this week. I pay tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for International Development who has worked over a long period to highlight an issue that has not been given enough attention in the past. In that context, what steps is the Secretary of State taking to end the practice in the UK, working with colleagues across the Government, and how can we go further and provide protection against forced marriages and domestic abuse?
Finally, I am reassured to hear that the Secretary of State is prioritising women’s rights and empowerment in discussions on a new post-2015 development framework. Does she agree that only a clear focus in that new framework on inequality and human rights will ensure an end to the exploitation of women across the world?
Justine Greening
I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman started his remarks in a tone that did not particularly fit my statement, but in response to his question, it is the Government’s intention to enshrine the aid target of 0.7% in law. I emphasise, however, that we have already been getting on with that this year.
I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman had a chance to visit the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and he rightly spoke about the need to tackle some of the underlying root causes linked to attitudes and social norms. Such factors are one reason why it is particularly challenging to make progress in this area. We cannot have a one-size-fits-all approach and our work must be country-specific and tailored to the needs of that country. That is precisely what we do, and we are working in about 20 countries. A good example of such work is the Tawanmandi programme that the Government have supported in Afghanistan. It works with a number of community groups but sits alongside work nationally to strengthen women’s participation at a political level.
We must also work—as we do—to strengthen justice systems so that when crimes take place there is no sense of impunity for those crimes, and steps can be taken to bring the perpetrators to justice. We have all seen the shocking statistics about the lack of justice for women who suffer sexual violence during conflicts, which is why the Foreign Secretary is right to champion this issue.
My Department has supported the One Billion Rising campaign, and I am delighted to say that the online petition on our website has been signed by nearly 30,000 people. It is an important matter, which is why the CSW is right to focus this year on eradicating violence against women.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the role of UN Women. It is still a relatively new organisation, having been set up in 2011. It is an amalgamation of some existing UN agencies that have worked in the area of women’s rights. I have spoken with Michelle Bachelet on a couple of occasions about the work that UN Women does. She is clear that the organisation needs to reform in order to be able to work more effectively at the UN level and in terms of its programmes at country level.
As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, the Government have introduced the multilateral aid review, which systematically looks at the effectiveness of taxpayer money as used via multilateral organisations such as UN Women. That organisation was not in existence the last time we carried out that review, but I hope that it will get a good score in the next MAR. We are working with UN Women to ensure that it can achieve that.
The hon. Gentleman asked about our aspirations for the CSW. If he has read the draft conclusions being debated in New York this week and next, he will see that they are strong conclusions and we should resist any watering down, although we should also recognise the element of negotiation in the process. I can assure him that the work that we have done in public and private includes lobbying; cajoling countries that often stay silent to speak up; and encouraging like-minded countries that are in favour of the CSW’s conclusions to work together. That work has seen a significant increase this year compared with previous years. It would be a significant backward step for women’s rights if we were to fail to reach good, strong conclusions at this year’s CSW, and we are working towards reaching those conclusions.
Finally, the hon. Gentleman asked about abortion. We all recognise how sensitive that issue is, but the UK has often been one of a handful of donors who are prepared to fund work to ensure that women can have safe abortions, especially when they have become pregnant through violence and in conflict situations. We recognise that this is a sensitive area for other countries, but I can assure him that we raise our concerns. It is an important area, and the UK can be proud that in spite of it being a sensitive issue we have ensured that we provide support to women who need it in that situation.
Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)
I warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. It is incredibly heartening and we are all very encouraged by it. I especially welcome what she said about female genital mutilation. In the last few years through the all-party group, I have had the privilege of meeting some fantastic grass-roots campaigners from Africa. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that we will support these amazing people—mostly women—working in country and with diaspora communities, to find out what really works on the ground and to back them up in their brave and important fight?
Justine Greening
We are supporting the UN joint programme in work in this area. My hon. Friend is right: some of the strongest advocates in ending FGC are those people who have themselves suffered. It is a terrible practice. Interestingly, it is not a religious practice, and we can enlist the support of religious leaders in making the case in their communities about why this practice should end. It is worth saying that the EU report published yesterday confirms that work remains to be done right here in the UK, and we must not shy away from that.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement, but a lot of the aims are being put at grave risk by continuing sexual violence in conflict situations. Strengthening the terms of the draft arms treaty is one thing that could make a difference. What discussions is the Department having with the Foreign Secretary on this important matter?
Justine Greening
I assure the hon. Lady that the Department has discussions with the Foreign Office, and my right hon. Friend the Minister of State leads that work. She is right that the focus on women and girls, particularly in relation to the prevention of sexual violence in conflict, must run through the Government’s work, not just in DFID but in other Departments too, and that is why I welcome the Foreign Secretary championing the initiative. It will also be on our G8 agenda; we will be beating the drum to ensure that other G8 members sign up to that effort and join us.
Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)
I wholeheartedly welcome the statement. I am proud of the work that the Government are doing to lead the world on gender equality, and in particular I commend the Under-Secretary of State for International Development, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), for her work in New York. However, we must ensure that other countries play their part. The Prime Minister is co-chairing the high-level panel to devise the next set of millennium development goals in Bali later this month. Will the Secretary of State urge him, in that leading role, to press for a stand-alone goal on gender equality and women’s empowerment?
Justine Greening
I have been clear that I believe we need a stand-alone goal, and that we need to see these issues right the way through any new development framework. As my hon. Friend knows, the debate on what the new development framework should be once the millennium development goals come to an end in 2015 is at an early stage, but I can reassure her that, having been to the first two meetings in London and with the Prime Minister in Liberia, there is an understanding that it is vital for the issue of gender, which was in one of the MDGs in the first development framework, to be in the next framework.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)
I would like to press the Secretary of State a little further on the issue of Syrian refugees, which she touched on in her statement. The number of refugees has now hit the 1 million mark, and two-thirds of them are women and children. The UN has said that it lacks the funds necessary to deal with the crisis. Yesterday, the Foreign Secretary said that the UK
“will seek new ways to relieve the humanitarian crisis”.—[Official Report, 6 March 2013; Vol. 559, c. 962.]
Will she elaborate a little further on what that will involve? Does she anticipate the UK increasing its financial contribution to the aid effort?
Justine Greening
The UK has played a leading role not only in providing financial and humanitarian assistance to help alleviate the suffering of the 1 million refugees and, in addition, the many displaced people within Syria, but in beating the drum for other countries to step up to the plate. The Kuwait conference I attended a few weeks ago saw Arab nations, in particular, begin to put in significant funding. The hon. Gentleman asks what more we can do. I am prepared to do more. Unfortunately, if we continue to see refugees streaming across the Syrian border into neighbouring countries, it is likely that we will need to do more. As I said in my statement, I raised formally at the UN the issue of how we deal with women and girls. That needs to be carefully thought through and never missed in our humanitarian work. From looking at similar situations, such as in Haiti, we know that it is easy for the plight of women and girls to be missed. They are never more vulnerable than in such situations. The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the issue, and I assure him that we are raising it in the UN to ensure that the risks are mitigated wherever possible.
Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)
I congratulate the International Development Secretary on her statement, which clearly demonstrates the UK’s commitment to women’s rights around the world. I particularly welcome her commitment to tackling violence against women as a strategic priority for Afghanistan. Does she agree that we should ensure that human rights defenders and women in public office in Afghanistan are protected? They are particularly targeted for abuse and violent intimidation when they stand up for women’s rights. These women are our allies in ensuring and improving women’s rights in Afghanistan and we should be doing more to protect and support them.
Justine Greening
In short, I agree with my hon. Friend. Some of the most courageous people I have met during my time in this role were the women I met when I went to Afghanistan at the end of last year. They are amazing women who are literally putting their lives on the line to stand up for women’s rights in Afghanistan. They should be supported in doing that, which is precisely why I believe it is now time to make this issue a more strategic priority in the work DFID does in Afghanistan.
Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)
Last Friday I took part in an event at Aberdeen university which showed a moving film called “Sister”, which highlighted the reality for pregnant women in developing countries. The film was a graphic demonstration of why millennium development goal 5, on maternal health, is still some way from being met. What action are the Government taking to improve maternal health in developing countries and increase the survival rates of women and their babies?
Justine Greening
Interestingly, in spite of all the progress that has been mentioned, there is a huge issue, with issues in childbirth and pregnancy still representing the largest reason for death among girls aged 15 to 19 in developing countries. We are addressing that through a range of health interventions in many programmes, but also through family planning, as I have said, and, critically, education. We know that the better educated women become, particularly if they not only get to primary school, but go on to secondary school, the later they start their families and the healthier those families will be. However, there is still a huge amount of work to be done in this area, and that is what we are getting on with.
Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
I think the whole House will welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. Does she agree that all the millennium development goals are important in supporting women and girls? For example, on water and sanitation, if girls have appalling sanitation when they go to school, they will be less inclined to stay there. They will drift away from school and remain illiterate. Some 40% of girls in countries such as Ethiopia are illiterate; therefore, our family planning and other initiatives tend to fall on deaf ears and those girls miss out on life chances. When we look at post 2015, we need to ensure that we take all the millennium development goals forward and not cherry-pick one or another. They are a comprehensive set that all need to be taken forward if we are to support women and girls.
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend is right. Recently I saw some research showing that while men in developing countries viewed water and sanitation as their seventh highest priority, for women it was number two. Interestingly, I think I am right in saying that the No. 1 priority for both men and women was getting a job. I will be making a speech next week about how DFID can help to make that happen.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
When I asked about the arms trade treaty at Foreign Office questions on Tuesday, I was assured that although no DFID Minister was going to the talks later this month, they were very much taking an interest in it, working the phones and so on. I was therefore concerned by the Secretary of State’s response to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore), which implied that the issue is simply not on her radar at all, when it is so important to the matters addressed by her Department, such as poverty among women and gender-based violence. Can I urge her to give it real priority?
Justine Greening
I can assure the hon. Lady that I do give the issue priority. I am making a statement today precisely because I think that the issue of women and girls is so important in all aspects. I hope she can welcome that. To reiterate, I take her point on board. I regularly meet the Foreign Secretary to discuss the work our two Departments do together and I can assure her that this is precisely the sort of issue I discuss with him.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
I congratulate the Secretary of State on the excellent job she is doing and on today’s statement. On the issue of abortion, although I completely understand that women who are subject to sexual violence and other issues that bring about unwanted babies might want access to abortions, will the Secretary of State assure the House that there will be strict criteria for the use of British taxpayers’ money for abortions and that it will not be for abortion on demand?
Justine Greening
I think I can provide that assurance. Our involvement has not been about the rights and wrongs of abortion. In countries where abortion is permitted, and where we can support programmes that make safe abortion possible rather than allowing unsafe abortions, that is what we have focused on.
Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
I very much welcome today’s statement. Earlier this week, I chaired a joint meeting of the all-party parliamentary groups on international development and the environment and on water and sanitation in developing countries. We learned that, notwithstanding the huge progress that has been made on access to water, sanitation and hygiene, women and girls are consistently and substantially left behind when we measure success, not least because of the taboos around menstruation and childbirth. Are the Government confident that the ways in which they intend to measure the effectiveness of their new initiatives will fully capture their impact on women and girls and uphold their basic rights and dignities?
Justine Greening
I am confident, but there is a lot of work to be done. At a basic level, we are now focusing on gender-disaggregated data, so that we can understand the impact of our programmes in terms not only of overall value for money but of how they impact on men and on women. That is a significant programme of work for us. The hon. Lady is right to highlight this point, and we are increasingly starting to look at how our programmes affect women and girls explicitly.
Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
With the support of DFID, ShelterBox, a very good charity based in Cornwall, is delivering practical support to refugees in Syria and Lebanon. What more can be done to support the women and girls who are fleeing from the dreadful atrocities in Syria—particularly the sexual violence that is being committed against them?
Justine Greening
There are a number of things. First, we must ensure that we have human rights monitors who are able to go into Syria so that we can find out for ourselves what is happening on the ground. Secondly, many of the women who are leaving are by that stage the head of their household as their husbands are no longer with them, and we must ensure that they get not only the care, often medical care, that they need but counselling for the trauma that they—and, often, their children—have gone through in order to make it to the refugee camps.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
I welcome every word of the Secretary of State’s statement, but I want to dispute one letter. She spoke of setting up an expert advisory group on girls and women. Will she also ensure that it is an expert advisory group of girls and women? Perhaps it could include people such as my constituent Samira Khalil, a young woman from an Afghani family who was educated in Brent North and is now studying at Cambridge, or Faisa Mohamoud, who works for the Help Somalia Foundation and who could tell the right hon. Lady a thing or two about female genital mutilation and how it affects that community. Let us make sure that it is a women-led group with women’s experience at the heart of it.
Justine Greening
I suspect that it will be women-led, although there will be no absolute bar on men being involved.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on her excellent and very encouraging statement. Does she welcome the warm endorsement that Kate Allen, the head of Amnesty International, gave to the Government’s policies on women and girls on Monday?
Justine Greening
Yes, I was delighted by that. It was very good of Amnesty to allow me to make my speech at its headquarters here in London. Amnesty has been pressing us for some time to focus more strategically on the work that we are doing, particularly on women and girls in Afghanistan, and I was pleased to be able to set those policies out to Kate on Monday.
Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)
I welcome the priority that the Secretary of State is giving to women and girls, and I hope that she welcomes the work that the International Development Committee is doing on the subject at the moment. I once asked the noble Baroness Afshar, before she was appointed to the House of Lords, what would make the most difference to British development policy in supporting women and girls. She said that it would be to ensure that there always had to be a woman’s signature on the cheque book. When the Secretary of State is talking about budget support, will she seek to ensure that, when decisions are taken by the Governments to whom we give money, women Ministers in those Governments are required to sign off any decisions before they are made?
Justine Greening
I am not sure whether we can go quite that far in practice, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the focus on women and girls will become a more hard-coded bit of our Department from now on. For example, our multilateral aid review is currently under way, but when we do our next one in 2015, the way in which multilateral agencies look at the issues of women and girls will be one of the factors that we use in assessing their performance. He is right to say that we want to see countries moving in the right direction on this agenda. The debate that is happening in New York, in which the Under-Secretary of State for International Development, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), has been involved this week, shows that that is a challenge, but it is one that we need to meet head on.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I thoroughly commend my right hon. Friend for her powerful and moving statement. Will she commend the work of the Global Poverty Project, which has done so much to promote the empowerment of women as one of the five principles that are absolutely essential to rescuing societies from poverty and despair? Can she tell us what support she is giving to the project in order to help it in this important work, which is winning the argument?
Justine Greening
I will write to my hon. Friend about the precise support that we are giving to the project, but I can say that some amazing work has been done by such organisations. In the UK, Emmeline Pankhurst was being arrested for fighting for votes for women 100 years ago. It is staggering that in so many other countries, women’s rights are still at such a basic level and still having to be fought for. I said this week that the issue of women’s rights remains one of the greatest unmet human challenges that the world faces, and it is incredibly important that we do anything we can to work with those organisations to raise the issue and do something about it.
Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)
Last April, members of the associate parliamentary group for the Republic of Sudan and South Sudan and I visited Lakes state in South Sudan and saw for ourselves the enormously empowering effect that smallholder agriculture projects can have on women’s economic rights in sub-Saharan Africa. Will the Secretary of State tell us what investment plans her Department has to support women’s economic development in that region during the remainder of this Parliament?
Justine Greening
I know that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for International Development has looked at this area. Sudan and South Sudan are among the most challenging areas in which we carry out our work, and women’s economic empowerment in the region is incredibly important. In countries such as Kenya, women have access to only 1% of land titles, and without collateral, women cannot get a loan. Without a loan, they cannot develop their businesses. Much of our work is related to access to finance, as well as to allowing and helping women to grow the small businesses that they want to run, many of which involve agriculture and farming.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
In recognising international girls’ and women’s day, may I say how sad it was that the Opposition opened up by complaining about the 0.7% of GDP official development assistance spending? They had 13 years in which to correct that position, and this Government are already spending that amount. It was sad that they had to open up with those comments.
I commend my right hon. Friend’s powerful statement, from which I will take away some stark statistics. Women perform two thirds of the world’s work, but they earn only 10% of the income, own 1% of the property and hold 20% of the leadership positions. That suggests that there is much more work to be done. She mentioned that there had not been a good outcome at the UN talks last year. Will she tell us what needs to happen this year to ensure that that outcome is not repeated?
Justine Greening
All countries that have been keen to see the strong draft conclusions agreed have been lobbying furiously behind the scenes and in public. I have had two conversations with Michelle Bachelet, and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State has done some excellent work this week in New York on behalf of the Government as the cross-government champion on violence against women. At EU level, we have encouraged a unanimous EU approach to the issue. However, there is no doubt that those countries that do not want to see progress have also been getting organised, and there is no guarantee that we will be able to avoid a repeat of last year’s outcome. That would be a tragedy, and it is one that we are desperately trying to avoid.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
I was disappointed with the last speaker’s remarks, as it has been demonstrated here that there is a lot of support across the House for what the Secretary of State has done. I, for one, welcome her statement. Will she tell me what progress has been made to stop the trafficking of women?
Justine Greening
The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to hear that we are nearing completion of a programme that will up our game in combating human trafficking. We have done a lot of work on it, although it is not quite finished in the sense of us being able to roll it out. We want to do more work on the subject. I have met the head of the all-party parliamentary group on human trafficking, my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), who has campaigned tirelessly on the issue himself. One of my Department’s roles is not just to focus on countries in which we see women’s rights being eroded, but where aspects of that relate to the UK, to see what we can do by working with UK Government Departments to stop this terrible trade.
Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)
The Secretary of State rightly makes a lot of empowerment, and I commend the work of her Department in Nigeria, particularly on the development of school-based management committees and girls’ clubs in primary schools. Solidarity is an important facet of dealing with the problem and the Department has gone a long way to achieving it, although there remains much to do. Also critical is the need for more women teachers.
Justine Greening
I thank my hon. Friend for those words. Nigeria is a huge country, and we have a very large education programme—two programmes, in fact—that can be a real challenge to deliver, particularly when we are often working in remote rural areas. As he says, part of our work is to make sure that we have a programme that sees girls able to talk about issues and to get educated at the same time. The issue of women teachers is a particularly important one. We often see—not necessarily in Nigeria, but across the world—women teachers being intimidated not to get involved in teaching. The earlier little girls can see role models of women doing jobs, having successful careers and earning income, the better. That is why the issue is so important.
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
My wife grew up in Kenya and now sponsors a family there through Plan UK. Has the Secretary of State had a chance to speak to Plan UK about its assessment of how we can help women and girls in Kenya?
Justine Greening
I have not met Plan UK explicitly, although I know it is coming into my Department in the next few weeks. Its work in Kenya has, I think, been transformational. Real progress is being made in Kenya generally. Where I would like to see my Department doing more is in helping the country’s economy to develop. Ultimately, alongside developing public services and improving basic services, Kenya needs economic growth and jobs. Interestingly, UK companies did £1 billion-worth of trade with Kenya last year. I have no doubt that companies will have a role to play in joining the development push where Kenya is concerned.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. She will know that Pakistan will be one of the largest recipients of UK aid by 2015. One of the biggest problems facing Pakistan is population growth and lack of family planning, which has led to about 80% of maternal deaths. What discussions has my right hon. Friend had with the Government of Pakistan to address these issues?
Justine Greening
I was in Pakistan a few weeks ago, and I had the very same discussions that my hon. Friend mentions. Interestingly, much of the work we do for girls in Pakistan is focused on education. We have a huge programme, focused particularly on states such as Punjab, that provides young girls with the chance to go to primary school and then on to secondary school for the very first time. We know statistically that when girls spend more time in school, they are less likely to start a family quite so early. Alongside direct family planning and access to safe family planning, that is one of the best ways of tackling these issues in the long term.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
All who believe in fairness through gender equality will welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. Does my right hon. Friend agree that if we are to maximise the British voice on the international plain, we must focus absolutely on gender mutilation and other abuses here in Britain, as well as on other equality issues such as the continuing wage gender gap?
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend is right; in a nutshell, we have got to walk the talk. However sensitive and difficult it can sometimes be to discuss what is happening in our own country on women’s rights, particularly regarding FGM or forced marriage, I think we have to have that debate. It is time that we did. I hope we can lead by example. I pay tribute to the work that my right hon. Friends the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport are doing in this area. If we are to be credible, that work is vital and it must go on alongside the work my Department is doing.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on her statement and on all the work she is doing as Secretary of State for International Development. She quite rightly mentioned in her statement that she will apply special measures to the Afghanistan programme, but which other countries that are recipients of UK aid have most to do to improve their record on women and girls?
Justine Greening
Unfortunately, it is quite difficult to single out any particular countries, but we know that when we invest £35 million to tackle female genital cutting, we are aiming to eradicate the practice in 15 countries. In some communities, however, this practice is starting up, so we are not necessarily combating a problem that has reached its zenith so that we are trying to get it down to zero. We are working against the tide in some places, so I am not going to single out particular countries, not least because we want to hold out a hand to them to get them to move along the path we want. We are careful about how we manage to achieve that.
Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. Yesterday, I attended a meeting hosted by Raja Najabat Hussain, the chairman of the Jammu Kashmir self-determination movement, and met the head of the women’s wing of that organisation to mark international women’s day. Kashmiri women and girls have been deeply affected by the dispute in the region and have been denied their basic human rights for far too long. I welcome what my right hon. Friend has said about her work in areas such as Afghanistan and Syria, but what more can we do to support the women and girls of Kashmir?
Justine Greening
We have talked a lot about education and health today, but some of the work on justice and strengthening justice systems is also important alongside that, as is ensuring that the right laws are in place at the legislative level, so that women and girls have recourse at the national level. Those are the other building blocks that we should try to ensure are in place. Part of what DFID does is to work with institutions to strengthen them so that they are better able to deal with these issues—from a top-down basis, as well as from a grass-roots programme bottom-up basis. My hon. Friend mentioned the particular area of Kashmir, which is representative of the fact that in many of the places where DFID does its work, the circumstances are incredibly challenging—so much so in some cases that it is quite hard for our staff practically to get out and deliver the job and the programmes. Yet that is what they do, and I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to all the DFID staff in all those countries whose living conditions are incredibly challenging. They get on with their jobs and make a huge difference to the people they help.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
Raising my daughter over the last 10 years has been one of the most important roles I will ever carry out. I seek assurances from my right hon. Friend that when it comes to DFID projects, fathers and responsible male role models are, wherever possible, made part of the upbringing of disadvantaged girls?
Justine Greening
I can give my hon. Friend those assurances. We are funding programmes in Nigeria, for example, which do just that. Part of the research that we are conducting on violence against girls and women and how it can be tackled relates to how we can change attitudes and involve boys and men in the eradication of such violence.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
It is very sad that some people are suggesting that there are more slaves in the world than there have ever been before. As a delegate to the International Committee of the Red Cross, my wife watched slavers moving across south Sudan towards the middle east with girls, boys, women—mainly—and a few men. What measures can my right hon. Friend take to try to stop this abominable trade?
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend is right to raise that issue. It is 180 years since the House passed an Act abolishing slavery, but in reality, as he says, that is the day-to-day life that many people face. I assure him that I work tirelessly with the Foreign Secretary to combat it.
We must tackle the problem at national and international levels and at the grass roots, but if we are to tackle some of the root causes, we must also enable people to be more valuable if they stay where they are, which means ensuring that they are educated and have skills. The biggest value that they have should lie in their staying put and doing a job domestically. In future, the economic development aspect of what DIFD does will need to constitute a far bigger part of its overall work than it has in the past. Ultimately, trafficking and slavery are about money, so we need to change the money argument if we are to see a real change in outcomes.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
Last week I was a member of a Conservative Women’s Forum panel discussing sanitation and water. A representative of WaterAid said that some of schools that are now being built—and it is fantastic that girls are getting into schools—do not have bathrooms. Can we do anything about that? Should we not take all possible opportunities to achieve the millennium development goals referred to earlier by the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry)?
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend is right. It is often not good enough just to establish the infrastructure. We need to ensure that we have looked at every aspect of the barriers that prevent girls from going to school.
When I was visiting family members back in Rotherham the other day—I will keep it brief, Mr. Deputy Speaker—I opened the Rotherham Advertiser to see the headline “Knickers for Malawi”. Two women in Rotherham are collecting knickers and sending them to little girls in Malawi, because, as we know, one of the reasons parents are reticent about sending their girls to school is their worry about the girls not having the appropriate underwear —and who can blame them? We need to remove some of those unusual and unpredictable but important barriers, as well as investing in the obvious infrastructure.
Point of Order
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I apologise for clumsily trying to make it earlier.
During business questions today, the shadow Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle)—to whom I have given notice of my point of order—referred to me and to an article in The Sun. I was under the impression that it was a convention in the House that a Member who was to be mentioned by another should be given notice. If the hon. Lady had done that, I should have been able to inform her that the comments in the paper to which she referred were completely untrue, and that I am in the process of exchanging letters and seeking an apology and a retraction. However, at least this point of order has given me an opportunity to put it on record that I do not believe that the Prime Minister is sexist in any way, and also that the House should celebrate unconscious bias training as a way of increasing diversity, which we should all want.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Let me say in fairness that the shadow Leader of the House apologised to me for having to leave because she had to attend a meeting that was about to start. She waited as long as possible.
The hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) was in the Chamber when she was mentioned in passing. It was not a personal attack; it was merely a mention of the hon. Lady, so the normal custom did not apply. If the hon. Lady had not been present and it had been a personal attack, one would have expected her to be notified.
The hon. Lady is, rightly, seeking a retraction from The Sun. That is not a matter for the Chair, but let me say that the House wishes her well.
Business without Debate
Justice and Security Bill [Lords]
(11 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
15:34 - The House divided: - Ayes: 166 / Noes: 249 - Question accordingly negatived.
16:57 - The House divided: - Ayes: 222 / Noes: 13 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
I beg to move amendment 8, page 1, line 7, leave out ‘nine’ and insert
‘an elected Chair and eight other’.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 9, page 1, line 9, at end insert—
‘(2A) The Chair is to be a member of the House of Commons elected in the same way as the Chairs of Departmental Select Committees.
(2B) A person is not eligible to be elected as Chair of the ISC unless that person—
(a) has received the formal consent in writing of the Prime Minister to that person’s candidature, and
(b) is not a Minister of the Crown.’.
Amendment 10, page 2, line 3, leave out subsection (6).
Amendment 11, in schedule 1, page 16, line 5, after ‘person’, insert
‘elected as the Chair or’.
Amendment 12, page 16, line 7, after ‘(2)’, insert ‘The Chair or’.
Amendment 13, page 16, line 12, after ‘is’, insert ‘the Chair or’.
Amendment 14, page 16, line 16, leave out
‘Parliament by virtue of which the person is a member of the ISC’
and insert ‘Commons’.
Amendment (a) to Government amendment 58, line 11 at end add—
‘(e) may make payments to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority and House of Lords in respect of any expenditure incurred, or to be incurred, in relation to remuneration payable to ISC members in respect of their membership of the ISC.’.
Steve Baker
Before I deal with amendments 8 to 14, which stand in the name of, among others, my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie), I should explain that my hon. Friend has been unavoidably diverted by long-standing and immovable duties in relation to the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards. He sends his profuse apologies to the House.
I am acutely aware of what is at stake in relation to the Intelligence and Security Committee. In 2009 the Joint Committee on Human Rights published a report entitled “Allegations of UK Complicity in Torture”, which considered the ISC’s ability to work within a circle of secrecy and yet deliver credible scrutiny. It states:
“The missing element, which the ISC has failed to provide, is proper ministerial accountability to Parliament for the activities of the Security Services. In our view, this can be achieved without comprising individual operations if the political will exists to provide more detailed information to Parliament about the policy framework, expenditure and activities of the relevant agencies.”
The provisions in the Bill are therefore welcome on the whole, but amendments 8 to 14 would remedy a crucial deficiency in the struggle to provide that political will to answer to Parliament.
The amendments would have a very simple effect. They provide for the election of a Chair of the ISC from the House of Commons on the same basis as the election of Select Committee Chairs, apart from the fact that candidates would be required to obtain the formal consent of the Prime Minister in writing before standing. Ministers would be ineligible.
There are three reasons why reform of the ISC is needed. First, it tried, but failed, to get to the bottom of British involvement in rendition; its investigation of British complicity in extraordinary rendition was a test that it failed.
Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)
As an ISC member of seven years’ standing, may I say that I take grave offence at what the hon. Gentleman has just said? We looked very thoroughly at the evidence on rendition, and arrived at suitable conclusions. I think that to make a blanket allegation of that kind without providing any evidence to back it up, which I hope he will now do, is unacceptable.
Steve Baker
The hon. Gentleman’s intervention has slightly pre-empted a quotation that I was about to give. In a recent pamphlet, my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester wrote:
“The ISC found no evidence that the UK agencies were complicit in any extraordinary rendition operations and concluded that, during the critical period (from 2001 to 2003), the agencies had no knowledge of the possible consequences of US custody of detainees generally, or of Binyam Mohamed specifically.”
He went on to say:
“The opposite was the case. Successive court judgments have now made clear that the UK ‘facilitated’ the interrogation of Binyam Mohamed. Furthermore, High Court judgments in February and July 2009 concluded that crucial documents were not made available to the Committee by the Secret Intelligence Service, which led to the Committee’s Report on Rendition being inaccurate”.
I see the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) shaking his head, and I regret that he is offended, but the reality is that allegations have been made about the Committee’s performance, and made credibly, by my hon. Friend. What the amendments seek to do is not to haul the Committee over the coals, but to demonstrate that there is a strong, clear case for the Chair to be elected.
The ISC thought that it had reached the truth, but it had not. MI6 had been complicit in extraordinary rendition, and it was left to the courts to expose the truth.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
I am following the hon. Gentleman’s argument with interest. What evidence does he have to suggest that the information would have been provided if the Chair had been elected by this House? We all want that information to be provided, but how would this proposal fix the problem?
Steve Baker
It is, of course, very difficult to prove such things conclusively, but I will come on to discuss the evidence that the election of Select Committee Chairs has made those Committees more authoritative, which is a point the Government have endorsed. First, however, I want to raise two other issues.
Paul Murphy (Torfaen) (Lab)
As the Chairman of the Committee that produced the report, I have to tell the hon. Gentleman that it would not have made the slightest difference if I had been elected by Members of this House, as opposed to being appointed by the Prime Minister, as I was.
Steve Baker
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving his opinion, and I do not mean any slight against him personally, of course, but before addressing that specific point I would like to talk about the experience the House has had since Select Committee Chairs have been elected.
The second reason why the ISC needs reform is that its independence has been compromised by its ties to the Executive. In recent years, a string of appointees have come out of Government to chair the Committee, only to return to the Front Bench afterwards. Until the June 2009 reshuffle, all of the preceding three Chairmen of the Committee went straight back into senior Government posts. They were Ann Taylor, now Baroness Taylor of Bolton, and the right hon. Members for Torfaen (Paul Murphy) and for Derby South (Margaret Beckett).
Despite Standing Order No. 152E, introduced under the previous Prime Minister, Kim Howells was appointed as Chair by that Prime Minister in October 2008 without the involvement of the Committee of Selection. Experience of Government is no doubt valuable, but the revolving door between the chairmanship of the ISC and the Government should be blocked. It is damaging to the Committee’s credibility.
Sir Malcolm Rifkind (Kensington) (Con)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, especially as I must apologise because I will not be able to attend much of this debate as I have to travel overseas.
I put it to my hon. Friend that the point he makes is already met by the reforms in the Bill, because in future not only will the House of Commons have to approve any member of the Committee and be able to reject recommendations from the Prime Minister, but the Chairman will be elected by the Committee members from among themselves, who in turn will have been approved by the House of Commons. It was the Prime Minister who appointed me and all my predecessors; that is the current situation, but he will no longer have that power.
Steve Baker
My right hon. and learned Friend accurately reflects the Bill’s contents, but as I shall explain later, I do not think it is right that the Chair should be elected by the nominated members of the Committee approved by the House. I think the Chair should be elected by the whole House under secret ballot.
Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the situation outlined by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) would be analogous to MPs being chosen by sitting MPs? True democracy means that those outside the little magic circle of the Whips’ favourites have a say.
Steve Baker
I perhaps would not have chosen precisely the same words, but I entirely agree with my hon. Friend’s sentiments.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I am sorry to disagree with both my hon. Friends, especially as they really are my hon. Friends. That analogy breaks down because this is not MPs being elected by other MPs; rather, it is the Chair of the Committee being elected by a group of MPs who will have been chosen with the final say-so of the House of Commons. The other point I would simply make is that I do not think people who know either me or my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) would regard us as falling entirely in the Whips’ narks category.
Steve Baker
Since my hon. Friend has brought me on to this territory early, let me deal with these points now, first by saying to my right hon. and learned Friend that I well remember the month when he became Secretary of State for Defence, because it was when I graduated from initial officer training. I am very well aware of his august experience and the extent to which it exceeds my own. I am also well aware that my hon. Friend is a man of great character and integrity and personal courage. This is not really the issue, however. The issue is the institutional arrangements we put in place not necessarily to constrain my right hon. and learned Friend and my hon. Friend, but to ensure the Committee is credible both now and in future.
Sir Malcolm Rifkind
I want to be clear about my hon. Friend’s position. Is he concerned that, as on previous occasions, I might be asked to rejoin the Government in the near future? If so, I would be grateful if he would share any relevant information with me.
Steve Baker
As I am sure my right hon. and learned Friend knows, I am often in close contact with the Whips, but not usually on that matter.
The third reason why the ISC needs to be reformed is that it has seemed unwilling to demonstrate that it challenges the information it receives from the intelligence and security agencies. The Joint Committee on Human Rights found the ISC’s 2007 report on rendition to be “opaque” and too readily accepting of the accounts presented by the agency heads, without sufficient justification.
The crucial reform that is necessary is direct election of the Chair by the House of Commons. The Wright Committee—the Committee on Reform of the House of Commons—thought extremely carefully about this issue. Paragraph 74 of its report states:
“The credibility of select committees could be enhanced by a greater and more visible element of democracy in the election of members and Chairs.”
It also states:
“Their election by a small group of Members, acting under party constraints, is evidently not conducive to producing a truly independent figure with the required weight inside and outside the House which House-wide election might confer.”
That is precisely my point.
Those of us who were elected in 2010 have experienced first hand only the operation of Select Committees under Chairs directly elected by the House, so I personally struggle to draw a comparison. However, in responding to the Liaison Committee’s second report of Session 2012-13 on Select Committee effectiveness, resources and powers, the Government acknowledged:
“Chairs of select committees are now elected by the whole House, giving them increased authority and independence.”
Who am I to disagree with the Government on this point?
That is precisely the reason for these amendments. It may suit the Government to be scrutinised by carefully selected nominees who elect a Chair from among themselves, as the Bill proposes, but the risks to the credibility of the Committee are obvious.
Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is seeking to make the perfectly logical and rational argument that the Chair and membership of the ISC are analogous with the Chair and membership of other Committees. Does he not accept, however, that as the ISC deals with intelligence matters and our secret intelligence services, other factors must be taken into account, because the trust relationship—not collusion or a cosy relationship, but a trust relationship—between the agencies and the members of the Committee is crucial to effective scrutiny? If the agencies do not have that confidence and trust, they will be less forthcoming.
Steve Baker
The right hon. Lady’s question pre-empts some of my other remarks, but let me just draw her attention to what amendment 9 states:
“The Chair is to be a member of the House of Commons elected in the same way as the Chairs”
of other Committees, and:
“A person is not eligible to be elected as Chair of the ISC unless that person—
(a) has received the formal consent in writing of the Prime Minister to that person’s candidature, and
(b) is not a Minister of the Crown.”
So the Prime Minister, and the security establishment, would have the opportunity through that procedure to approve or reject a person who wished to stand for election as Chair of the Committee. That is not a perfect situation, but it is one that recognises the point the right hon. Lady makes.
Dr Julian Lewis
This is meant to be a helpful intervention. I think my hon. Friend accepts that if we are to have this Committee that is unlike any other in that it is the only Committee with access to top-secret, classified information, it is not good enough simply to say that any Member of this House, however honourable, who happens to be fortunate enough to win an election should automatically be appointed Chairman of such a Committee. Am I right that my hon. Friend acknowledges that that would be an impossible situation?
Steve Baker
I certainly agree with my hon. Friend on that point, but that is why the amendment is phrased in the way that it is. It does not seek that individual members of the Committee should be elected; that is a compromise that those who introduced it have agreed to. There is agreement that Committee members should be nominated by the Prime Minister and approved by the House, as the Government have proposed. The crucial distinction is that the Chairman, who is the key figure of the Committee, should be elected by secret ballot of the whole House and that that Chairman should have been previously agreed to by formal consent of the Prime Minister in writing, which gives the Prime Minister and the security establishment the opportunity to exclude any Member who might not be an appropriate person.
Sir Malcolm Rifkind
Has my hon. Friend taken on board the ultimate argument against his amendment—that is, the invidious position in which it would put the Prime Minister of the day? If someone has sought to stand as candidate for the Chair and the Prime Minister has refused to give his consent, that is not a private matter. That would become a public matter and the Prime Minister would either have to refuse to give his reasons or, if he did give his reasons, those might be very damaging to the reputation of the individual Member concerned. When the ISC considered this question, as we did when we were putting forward our original proposals to the Government, we rejected that idea precisely because it would put the Prime Minister in an invidious position that he could not be expected to carry out without creating much greater problems.
Steve Baker
I recognise that my right hon. and learned Friend is advancing that argument with the best possible intention, but we live in a time when, because of terrorism and the fear of terrorism in particular—to pre-empt my concluding remarks—there has been an encroachment on our fundamental principles of liberty and justice, which we see elsewhere in the Bill. It is in that context that we must make sure that the security services are held properly to account in a transparent and credible way.
Here is the crucial point: in other Select Committees, transparency can do the heavy lifting, but as has been mentioned, transparency is not available in relation to the ISC. Precisely because of that, we need an elected Chair. I appreciate that the Prime Minister might find himself in a position where he had to reject a candidate in advance of their election, but that is surely a better option than going forward with a Committee whose independence from prime ministerial patronage can be questioned. I appreciate that the Prime Minister might have to engage in some politics on this issue, but that is after all his job.
Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)
Like others, I do not take offence at the argument, but I think the hon. Gentleman’s representation of the nature of those who serve on the Committee is a long way short of my experience, if I may put it that way. Am I to understand that no matter how well qualified a Member of the House of Lords might be to chair the Committee, the hon. Gentleman’s amendment would preclude that from ever happening?
Steve Baker
Let me take both those points. I do not wish to cast any doubt on particular members, but we are in a position where the Committee’s success can be questioned and we need to deal with that on an institutional basis. Yes, the substance of the amendment would preclude a Member of the other House from being the Chairman of the Committee.
Amendments 8 and 9 provide for the election of the Chair from the House of Commons on the same basis as departmental Select Committee Chairs, with the exception that they would have to have the Prime Minister’s consent to their candidature. The amendments do not make provision for the election of members of the Committee. We think that together these amendments would lead to increased authority and credibility for the Chair, which is not to cast any aspersions on my right hon. and learned Friend. I feel sure that if he stood for election, I would be strongly inclined to vote for him. The point is to set up the institutions so that they are beyond reproach. Amendments 10 to 14 are consequential on amendments 8 and 9.
In conclusion, as I said, the problem is that terrorism and fear of terrorism have led Governments—for honourable reasons, I do not doubt—to erode principles that ordinarily we would regard as sacred principles of our systems of justice and liberty. I refer in particular to closed material procedures, but also to terrorism prevention and investigation measures, which have been dealt with on other occasions. In that context, it is vital that the House, the wider public and non-governmental organisations are reassured that the security agencies are answerable to the House, albeit in secret, through a Chair who enjoys the authority conveyed on him by Members. That is why we have tabled the amendments, and I hope that the House will adopt them.
Mr George Howarth
I shall try to be brief because I know that a great deal of ground needs to be covered in these debates. The hon. Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) has served a useful purpose by ventilating the issue through the amendments. I do not want in any way to detract from that. First, however, he bases the argument on an event that he portrays inaccurately, and I will say a word about that in a moment. Secondly, in trying to make the role of the Chair subject to the will of the whole House, he fails to understand the nature of the composition of such a Committee and the responsibilities placed on it, and I will also say a few words about that.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy) was the Chair of the Committee when we examined the issue of extraordinary rendition. The way that the hon. Gentleman portrayed what we did grossly misrepresented the process that we went through. First, as my right hon. Friend has just reminded me, there was a break at one point in our consideration of the Bill at the request of the then Government while further information was forthcoming.
Secondly, the hon. Gentleman implied that vital information had not been put before us. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen said in an intervention, the information that we did not have at the time did not change our conclusions at all. We subsequently got that information and, in further annual reports, we pointed out that there was a problem with retrieval of the information that the agencies held. It was never a deliberate attempt on their part to mislead us and the information concerned did not materially affect the conclusions that we drew. So the example that the hon. Gentleman uses to justify his case is, frankly, wrong.
Steve Baker
Does the right hon. Gentleman not accept the substance of the court judgments made around the Binyam Mohamed case?
Mr Howarth
There is a whole separate debate to be had about that. The hon. Gentleman rightly referred earlier to part 2 of the Bill, which deals with closed material proceedings. There are a number of problems with the Binyam Mohamed case, the main one of which concerned the doctrine known as the control principle. That creates serious problems for our relationships with partner agencies, particularly the United States, but if I were to go too far down that road, Mr Deputy Speaker would pull me up because we have already dealt with amendments to part 2. The process of considering the issues by the Intelligence and Security Committee is not as the hon. Gentleman portrayed it.
On my second point, I shall be brief because in his intervention the Chair of the Committee cleared that up. We have gone a very long way to making the ISC more like a Select Committee, but it never can be identical to a Select Committee, as I think the hon. Gentleman acknowledged, because of the nature of the material that we have to deal with. As a member of the Committee, I am content that the appropriate person to have the final say and to have the recommending powers on who is an appropriate person to chair that Committee should be the Prime Minister of the day—not that I do not trust the House of Commons. As a long-standing Member of the House, I have every confidence in it, but in this one exceptional circumstance I do not think that that is the appropriate way to do it. Although in democratic terms the hon. Gentleman’s amendment is well intentioned, I do not think it is appropriate.
Steve Baker
Why does the right hon. Gentleman consider it inappropriate to give the Prime Minister of the day the opportunity to approve—or reject—the candidacy of particular Members and then allow them to go forward, with the benefit of that approval, to be elected by the whole House so that they can enjoy the authority of the whole House? My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), who is no longer in his place, advanced the argument that the Prime Minister would be in an invidious position, but that does not seem to be what the right hon. Gentleman is concerned about. Why should we not have prime ministerial approval and then an election?
Mr Howarth
Because, as I have already said and as the hon. Gentleman acknowledges, the ISC is a different kind of Committee. The people concerned are handling different information—information that they cannot share—and there are occasions when there is an ongoing operation, things are moving at a fast pace, it is impossible to convene a meeting of the full Committee, and the Prime Minister, the heads of agencies and the Foreign Secretary—whoever is relevant—have to be able to talk to somebody. On some occasions the Chair has been the person they speak with, which is entirely appropriate, but in order for them to be able to do so the Chair must have the confidence of senior Ministers and the heads of the agencies. I think that is an important principle. Otherwise, they will feel inhibited about sharing vital information, which often has to be provided at very short notice, with the Chair at least.
Mr Carswell
Is not it precisely because the Committee’s work is so vital—in some senses it is more important than almost any other Committee, because it relates to fundamental issues of statecraft and national security—that there should be at least some modicum of democratic accountability, albeit under the system of de facto licence, as identified by my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker)? It is precisely because that work is so vital that it should not be left to the grandee system to ensure that the people who are meant to be overseeing what happens are awake and alert to the job.
Mr Howarth
The hon. Gentleman’s intervention seems to be predicated on the view that the Committee is entirely unaccountable, but that is not the case. We produce an annual report and other reports during the course of the year, and they are debated in both this House and the other place, along with other matters we have dealt with over the year. Therefore, to that extent there is accountability. In that sense the way the Committee operates is already similar to the way Select Committees operate, and it will become more so as a result of the Bill.
However, I still think that whoever chairs the Committee has a special role and that an appropriate veto over an individual’s promotion to it has to be in the hands of the Prime Minister of the day. I have no reason to believe that the current Prime Minister, who is not a member of my party, would not perform that role properly. I also believe that no Prime Minister would promote the candidacy of someone they did not think would have the confidence of the whole House, not just that of the Committee. In that context, I think that the accountability is already there. It might be a little bit opaque in some respects, and in others it might be indirect, but it is there and it is appropriate.
Dr Julian Lewis
I would like to confine my remarks to an elaboration of a point that was made very effectively by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), who sadly is not in his place at the moment. There seems to be a conflation of two separate concepts: whether the election of the Chair directly will aid the Committee’s credibility; and whether it will aid the efficacy of its performance. For the life of me, I cannot see how the method for electing the Chair would make any difference whatsoever if, for example, the Committee was carrying out an investigation and one or other of the security agencies chose not to supply it with certain information that ought to be supplied. I would have thought that the best insurance for an agency supplying the information that should be supplied is the consequences of what would happen if it did not do so and the omission came to public attention, as it inevitably would.
Steve Baker
If the Chair is elected and enjoys the authority of the House, apart from any prime ministerial patronage or the appearance of it, he would have the authority, and not just with the agencies, but in the public sphere, to be able to tell the Prime Minister that he was dissatisfied with the information provided by a particular agency, and in that way the two mechanisms come together and authority over the agencies is increased.
Dr Lewis
I am afraid that I do not think that cuts any ice whatsoever, because one cannot be in a position to be dissatisfied with information that one has not been given and does not know exists. The suggestion, which is implicit in my hon. Friend’s intervention, that the person who was Chair at the time of the particular historical episode to which he refers—it was before my time on the Committee—would have acted in any way differently had he been elected, and that he did not act simply because he felt insufficient legitimacy to do so because he had not been directly elected, is frankly unrealistic.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) seems to overlook the fact that changes in the Bill will massively strengthen the Committee’s position. The Committee will be able to require information to be provided, whereas previously it could only request it. That is a huge difference. The position of the House of Commons will be strengthened vis-à-vis the Committee’s membership, because previously the House could express an opinion about whether it had approved the people nominated to be members, but in fact the Prime Minister had the final say, whereas now the House will have the final say. If the House does not like the cohort of people who have been nominated, it can throw them out and the Prime Minister will have to nominate someone else.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe is focusing his attention on a really rather narrow issue, because the House of Commons will have the final say on who all the members of the Committee, at least from the House, will be, which at the moment is seven of the nine. Therefore, those members, who will themselves have been directly appointed by the House on the nomination of the Prime Minister, will then be in a very strong position to choose one of their own number to be Chair.
I will say one more thing on the matter. I do not think that the world would collapse if my hon. Friend’s amendment were successful, but we are taking a giant stride in the right direction. One thing I have found through working on the Committee is that it, probably more than any other Committee—all Select Committees like to flatter themselves for being relatively non-partisan—is totally non-partisan. Even if one wanted to be partisan, there is no one there to watch one being so, so there really is not much point. I can honestly say, as I said in an intervention at an earlier stage of the Bill’s consideration, that if anything unfortunate were to happen to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), who chairs the Committee, I would almost certainly find myself voting for the Chair, if I had the option of voting for another Committee member, on a non-party basis.
I do not think that what my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe is proposing would be earth-shatteringly damaging if it went through, but I really do not think that it is terribly necessary, and I am concerned that people would put themselves forward and say, “I wish to be in this position,” only to find that they had been vetoed, for reasons they could not be told, by the Prime Minister. That would be a coruscating experience for all concerned.
Paul Murphy
Had I been inclined to support amendments 8 to 14, my inclination would have dropped dramatically over the past half hour as a consequence of hearing the speech made by the hon. Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker). I do not think for one second that the Committee’s significance depends on the Chair. The Chair is an important member of the Committee—the first among equals. During the two years I chaired the Committee, including the period when we considered extraordinary rendition, there was certainly unanimity among the members, as the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) has just mentioned, as there is now, so the Committee had to come to a consensus.
It is preposterous to argue that whether or not the Chair had been elected would have made the slightest difference to the report on rendition or to the Committee’s eventually recommendations. That issue can be dealt with in another place and at another time, although the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie), who was supposed to move the amendment—we have had an explanation of why he cannot be here—had a particular interest in rendition, but Members of the House will know that the Committee dealt with a host of other important issues affecting this country’s intelligence services.
Twenty years ago, the Committee started on a journey. Before the law was changed, there was no Committee of this House—in the Commons or the Lords—to deal with the intelligence services. Indeed, just before the inauguration of the Committee, the very existence of MI6 was denied publicly by the Government. In those 20 years there has been a dramatic shift in how the intelligence services have been made more accountable. The latest of those shifts is proposed in this Bill, which is a very good Bill in that regard. The accountability and transparency that it requires—there is obviously a limit to how much transparency one can have when dealing with the intelligence services—is something that I am sure we all welcome and support.
I support the proposal that the members of the Committee—who, by the way, are themselves subject to approval by the House of Commons and the House of Lords—will decide on who the Chairman of the Committee is to be. The Prime Minister does not do that. The Prime Minister could have a say in who the members are, but ultimately the House of Commons makes that decision. Those members will know among themselves who they feel to be the best person for the job. We have to bear it in mind that this is not a Select Committee. If it were, it could be argued that its Chair should be elected in the same way as for a Select Committee, but it is not—it is a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament. The Chair of the Committee, who is usually, and should be, a Member of this House, reports to the House annually, and a debate is also held in the other place. Having the members themselves choose the Chair of the Committee is a very significant development.
The Committee can never be the same as a Select Committee, because if it were, it would not be doing its job. It has to command the trust and the confidence of the intelligence services because of the nature of the business they deal with. The only way to do that is to have people on the Committee who are trusted not only by their colleagues here and in the House of Lords but by the three agencies, so that they can ensure that there is the fullest flow of information of highly sensitive and secret detail that the Committee can deal with. That is why it is different from other Committees. I think that the proposals in the Bill, which have been refined over the past couple of years, are such that everybody will be able to support them today.
Another matter covered in this group of amendments is the way in which the ISC is financed. Under the Bill, the Committee is no longer a statutory Committee—it becomes a Committee of Parliament. As a consequence, the Government will pay Parliament for the workings and expenses of the Committee. I fully support the Government amendment. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) is going to discuss the remuneration of the members of the ISC—more particularly, that of its Chair. Of course, all of us who have held these positions over the years have had no remuneration. I welcome and support this development and only wish that it were retrospective so that I could claim two years’ back pay, but that is not going to happen. My hon. Friend’s amendment refers to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, which I hope will support this measure. I also hope that the Chair of the ISC will get the same remuneration as is paid to the equivalent Chairs of Select Committees: in this case, I imagine, the Foreign Affairs, Home Affairs and Defence Committees. The right hon. and learned Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) is extremely hard working in his position, and I believe that this is a right and proper thing to do.
Sir Menzies Campbell
I have the good fortune, in the interests of brevity, to be able to acknowledge all that has been said on both sides of the House, but I would like to add a thought or two of my own.
This Committee is sui generis; there is nothing else like it. To seek to bring it within a certain structure runs the risk of ignoring the fact that it has particular characteristics. The Chair of the Committee has particular characteristics, too, because by convention the Committee does not talk to the press. When any request is made for information from the print or electronic media, the proper course of action, which, if I may say so, I have studiously followed since my election, is to refer the matter to the Chair of the Committee. The Chair then finds himself in a very difficult and sensitive position regarding the extent to which he is able to respond to possibly legitimate inquiries about the work of the Committee, in so far as that is consistent with the fact that he, like all of us, signs the Official Secrets Act. No member of any other Select Committee in the House of Commons does that. Particular skills are therefore essential for the chairmanship of this Committee that are not necessarily required in the chairmanship of other Committees. I respectfully suggest that those who are best able to assess those skills are the members of the Committee themselves. Of course, they must have confidence in their Chair.
Sir Menzies Campbell
I will finish this point, if I may.
The amendment contains a contradiction in saying that we must elect the Chair in accordance with general circumstances while adding an extra requirement. That would make it a little difficult to maintain the unqualified democratic support that the mover of the amendment sought to persuade us to accept would be part of the process.
Steve Baker
I admire the way in which the right hon. and learned Gentleman is attacking my amendment and seeking to show a contradiction. We all agree that this Committee is different because of its need to access classified information, and that is the reason for having a different provision that does not exist in the case of other Select Committee Chairs.
Sir Menzies Campbell
First, I had a concession on the peers and now I have a concession on what appears to be an inherent contradiction.
It seems to me that these provisions meet the necessary requirements of a Committee that is sui generis and that they are entirely in accord with the extension of scrutiny and responsibility that the rest of the Bill provides.
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
Let it be stated from the beginning—this should be made absolutely clear—that this is not about the integrity of any member, past or present, of the Intelligence and Security Committee. I am certain that the hon. Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker), who moved the amendment, is under no illusions, because it would be defeated in a vote. I hope there will be a vote, but am not sure that there will be.
I think that this has been a useful debate, however brief, because we rarely have the opportunity to debate how ISC members are appointed. My right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy) has reminded us that until about 25 years ago there were no statutory regulations on the security agencies. I remember clearly my attempts to have debates on M15 and so on in the 1980s, but they were not welcomed, to say the least. In so far as M15 and M16 are accountable to Parliament, I thought it only right and proper that we should have the opportunity now and again to discuss their role.
As I stated many years ago, let me make it clear—in case anyone thinks otherwise—that I am not against the security agencies. Even when there was no acute terrorist threat such as that which we face now, I made the point time and again that every democracy has a right to protect itself and should have some sort of agency against those who want to do harm to it.
What we are discussing today is not, as I have said, a matter of integrity, but whether the House should have an opportunity to elect those who serve on the ISC. I see no reason why we should not do that. I do not like the view that has been expressed, more or less, that the security agencies could veto people whom they do not particularly like.
Mr George Howarth
I do not think that anybody is advancing the argument that the heads of agencies or the agencies themselves should have a veto. It is merely that they should be able to feel confident in the person who chairs the Committee. The difference is subtle, but they are two different things.
Mr Winnick
When the agencies were put on a statutory basis, however, and appointments duly made, it was argued that if certain people were made members the security agencies would not supply the information requested because they would not have confidence in them. I do not believe that it is possible to divide the House into those Members who can be relied on in that manner and those who cannot. There should be no such division. Are any of us who have the honour to be elected Members of this House fellow travellers of terrorist organisations or willing to betray the trust of our country? I do not accept that Members can be divided accordingly.
If the Chair of the ISC and its members were elected by the whole House—that is not going to happen at this stage, unfortunately—they would have more authority and more credibility. That does not mean that, had the Committee been elected in the past, it would have come to different conclusions. That is not what I am saying; what I am saying is that, instead of appointments, there should be elections, as is the case with Select Committees.
Paul Murphy
My hon. Friend is making a speech that he has made for many years and his important views are sincerely held. Does he not accept, however, that there has been a big change in the system, in that the appointment of Members of this House to the Committee is subject to the approval of us as Members of Parliament? That was never the case before.
Mr Winnick
Yes, of course, and that is an improvement. I do not challenge that. Indeed, as I have said, placing the agencies on a statutory basis was an improvement and a step forward from what happened previously. I hope that, when Members on the two Front Benches agree—I do not know when that will happen—the next step will be elections, which will be far better for credibility, which is essential, than appointments.
It seems odd that we are debating, in the 21st century, whether elections are desirable for Committee positions. I would have thought that we passed that stage some time ago.
Paul Murphy
Does my hon. Friend not accept, however, that this is a joint Committee and that other such Committees of the House are not elected, but subject to parliamentary approval in exactly the same way?
Mr Winnick
Yes, I do accept that, but it would be useful if Commons members of the Committee were elected. What they do in the other place is entirely a matter for them.
As I said at the beginning, this is a useful debate that gives a minority of us the opportunity to express our views. I hope that, in due course and over the years ahead, the House of Commons will make the sort of decision on this matter that some of use would like to see.
Mr Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale West) (Con)
I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick). I am sure I have agreed with him on previous occasions, but I am not sure on what issues. I agree with the thrust of his remarks. Like him, I start by saying that I have the highest regard for those of our colleagues who currently serve on the Intelligence and Security Committee and those who have done so in the past. It is not my view that we would get better people to serve on the Committee if we elected them, but neither do I think we would get worse people.
Having been elected by colleagues to serve as a member of the Wright Committee on Reform of the House of Commons during the previous Parliament, and given that one of our recommendations has been discussed, I want to make a brief contribution to this debate. Of course, we made other important recommendations, including the introduction of elections for Select Committees. I hear what other Members have said about this being a different type of Committee that is not entirely analogous to Select Committees, but when we considered our proposals we heard all the same arguments—that it would lead to frivolous appointments, that the House would behave in a partisan way in choosing Select Committee Chairs or members, and that the House of Commons could not be relied on to do this in a reasonable, rational way.
Although I did not realise at the time that my election as chairman of the 1922 committee meant that I would be responsible for conducting the elections of Conservative members to Select Committees—I inadvertently increased my work load considerably as a result—I think, three years on, that those elections have been a great success. The Chairmen are good people who have been elected for the right reasons, which demonstrates that we have made a wise change.
We reflected long and hard on this recommendation for a particularly important and sensitive Committee, and that is why we also recommended a safeguard that it should not be possible for somebody to be a candidate for election as Chairman of the ISC if they did not enjoy the confidence of the Prime Minister. I am entirely open to other suggestions as to how it could be done. I think that it is important to have a safeguard and that, with that safeguard in place, an election would be entirely reasonable.
The question, as we have heard, is whether it would make a difference to the stature or efficacy of the Committee if it were elected rather than appointed. It could make a difference in either direction. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) ably argued, the Committee could enjoy a higher stature as the result of an elected status. One hopes that that will be the case in due course. Some Members have raised the fear that it would have a lower status. They argue that potential members and Chairs of the Committee might not enjoy the confidence of the security services in particular and that, therefore, the Committee would function less well.
Again, I do not believe that to be the case. I think that fundamentally the House is capable of reaching that very serious conclusion, making that judgment and choosing somebody on the basis that they would be the right person to serve as Chairman. I join those of my colleagues who have fallen over themselves to stress that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), who sadly has had to go on travels elsewhere, is an admirable Chairman. I would be delighted not only to vote for him, but to propose him as Chairman. He would be an obvious choice.
Paul Murphy
I am listening to the hon. Gentleman’s argument, but I am convinced that we are not getting to grips with the difference between Joint Committees and Select Committees. The ISC is a Joint Committee, like the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and is appointed. Is it not ironic that an unappointed Committee should have asked for another Committee to be elected, even though it had the same status?
Mr Brady
The right hon. Gentleman makes a valuable point. We are engaged in a process here. There has been a considerable amount of reform. The hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) alluded to the history: 25 years ago there was no oversight, then we got an oversight Committee and now we have a proposal to allow a parliamentary veto of its membership. Like him, I find it hard to believe that this is the last stage in that journey, and I suspect that 25 years from now we might have different arrangements in the other place and be looking at a completely different constitutional arrangement, which Joint Committees will have to reflect.
For me—I cannot speak for the other members of the then Committee on Reform of the House of Commons—the fundamental point is not about the ISC, which I suspect would have much the same membership, would behave in much the same way and, like now, would have a high status and be held in high regard by the House. Fundamentally, this is an argument about the House of Commons and whether we have the self-confidence to believe that we should be taken seriously as a Parliament and a representative Chamber and whether we are prepared to take on this enormous responsibility. Just as the election of Select Committee Chairmen and members has enhanced the House, I believe that eventually this next step will also enhance it. It will prove us capable of making that responsible judgment and ensuring we have a Committee overseeing these vital and sensitive matters that is chosen democratically, but which is capable of enjoying the respect of the Government, the security services and the whole country. That could be done in a slightly more open and democratic way.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
I plan to speak to amendments 8 to 14, which deal with the election of the ISC Chairman, and then Government amendment 58, which deals with the broad proposals for the financing and resources required by the ISC. After that, I shall speak to amendment 58(a), which stands in my name and that of my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary and would make provision for payment to members of the ISC.
It has been helpful having this debate and hearing the experiences of past and serving members of the ISC and other hon. Members who have taken an interest in the area for many years. It was important to hear the historical context and the explanation of why we are in this position. My right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy) explained that when the ISC was set up in 1994 it represented a huge change in the relationship between Parliament and the security services and that we have been on a journey ever since—this is part of that journey. It was also interesting to hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) said about the fight to get the ISC set up. It is important that we understand the history and why we are in this position, but we must also recognise the important work that the ISC does, and I pay tribute to all its members, who put an enormous amount of time and effort into their roles. It is vital that the public have confidence in the security services, and that demands confidence in their oversight.
In our debates in the other place and here in Committee, there were extensive exchanges between the Government and the Opposition about how to strengthen the role of the ISC. Since inception, the ISC has been composed of Members of Parliament, yet because of its unique nature, it has often been portrayed more like a component of the Executive, not least because its secretariat is provided by the Cabinet Office. The Government have now finally decided, however, formally to constitute the ISC as a Committee of Parliament. Changing its name to the “Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament” emphasises not only that the ISC is composed of parliamentarians, but that they are doing the work of Parliament while serving on the ISC.
In Committee, we debated whether to move to a full Select Committee status for the ISC, and there was lengthy debate about what it would mean and how it would operate. I think there was clear recognition from both sides of the House that the special nature of the role of the ISC and the sensitive and secret information it routinely dealt with made its constitution worthy of separate and special consideration. Many parliamentarians are calling for reform to be hastened. I would like to set out the Opposition’s view. My right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary has called for the ISC to become a Select Committee. We recognise that, were that to happen and because of the special nature of its work, we would have to consider the most appropriate way of appointing a Chair.
We think that amendment 8 gets the matter the wrong way around: it would deal with the election or appointment of the Chair, whereas we need to deal first with the fundamental issue about the status of the Committee. The Bill provides for a Committee of Parliament, with the rules for its operation and procedure laid down in statute. Hon. Members will know that Select Committees are not created by statute, but formed by a resolution of the House and governed through Standing Orders. I recently reread the chapter in the book by the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) about the ISC and what reforms were needed. Of course, he referenced the Wright Committee recommendations about the ISC’s becoming a Select Committee and having an elected Chair, just like other Select Committees.
The problem is, however, that in the Bill the Government are establishing the ISC as a Committee of Parliament, not a Select Committee. We are, then, in a very different place from the established Select Committee structures. I note the comments of the hon. Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker), but amendment 8 would give the ISC the partial look of a Select Committee, when it actually is not a Select Committee. I also note that setting out in a Bill how the Commons should elect a Chair is problematical, because the House is governed by Standing Orders. Will the Minister say whether it is in order to put in a Bill a mechanism for how the House should operate?
My second problem with the amendment, which has been touched on by right hon. and hon. Members, is that it would require the Prime Minister to give written consent to any Member wishing to stand as Chair. As has been recognised, that does not happen with any other candidate for a Select Committee position, although it goes some way to recognising the special nature of the Committee. It would present lots of problems, however, as it would mean that the Prime Minister could decide not to endorse a candidate—an elected MP—as not suitable for a role, which would put the Prime Minister in a difficult position. I am not sure it is one we want to move to.
Sir Menzies Campbell
Let us imagine that, say, half a dozen people wanted to apply. Has the hon. Lady considered what would happen if the Prime Minister took the view that only one of them was suitable? What would happen to the element of choice lying behind the views expressed today?
Diana Johnson
The right hon. and learned Gentleman highlights yet another problem with supporting amendment 9 at this stage. He is right that it would take away the element of choice if only one candidate was endorsed.
Steve Baker
That is one of the more ingenious arguments for not having an election. It seems to me more than likely that the vast majority of Members of this House would meet the Prime Minister’s basic requirements for being suitable to keep state secrets. I cannot accept that argument. It seems to be an ingenious way of saying that democracy is not appropriate.
Diana Johnson
Nobody is saying that democracy is not appropriate. We are just highlighting some of the issues with the amendments that have been tabled.
The basic problem that the Opposition have with the hon. Gentleman’s amendments is that they put the cart before the horse. The first issue that needs to be addressed is the status of the Committee. We should then decide how to elect or appoint a Chair to that Committee.
Mr George Howarth
My hon. Friend is making a very good case, so I hesitate to interrupt her further. Does she accept that there is a world of difference between the Prime Minister saying, “I think this is a suitable person to be the Chair of the Committee” before Parliament endorses them, and Parliament electing somebody and the Prime Minister then having to say, “I don’t think this is a suitable person”? Those two positions are entirely different. She is right about that.
Diana Johnson
My right hon. Friend makes that point very clearly. I will return to my argument, because I am conscious that other Members wish to speak about later proposals.
The Opposition are of course sympathetic to attempts to widen accountability and open the ISC as much as possible. In Committee, we supported a number of amendments to do just that. We tabled amendments so that we could consider whether an Opposition Member should always chair the Committee, as with the Public Accounts Committee, and whether there should be a majority of MPs—elected representatives—on the ISC.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
I have some experience of that point. I was Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee for nine years. The Chair of that Committee is the sole auditor of the accounts of the security services, so he sees in great detail all the accounts of the security services. He is not vetted by anybody, including the Prime Minister. He is elected by all Members of the House. Nobody has ever suggested that an elected or appointed Chair of the Public Accounts Committee is a threat to national security, so this is a fuss about nothing.
Diana Johnson
The hon. Gentleman speaks with great experience as the former Chair of the Public Accounts Committee. However, the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee deals with far more than just the finances of the security agencies, so it is not quite the same.
Dr Julian Lewis
On that point, the hon. Lady’s response is correct. The people who advise the Intelligence and Security Committee on the finances of the security and intelligence services leave the meetings when other matters—namely, classified information—are under discussion.
Diana Johnson
That information is very helpful.
I have explained why the Opposition will not support amendment 8. Government amendment 58 relates to the money, staff, accommodation and other resources that will be made available to Parliament for the new Committee. I wonder whether the Minister can help me, because I am slightly confused about the intention of the Government with respect to the support that will be provided to the ISC. In his response, will he set out how he expects the secretariat to the ISC to be provided? In Committee, we discussed a proposal suggested by the membership of the ISC for a non-departmental public body to be established to provide secretarial support. That does not appear to be what the Government are doing. Will he therefore explain what will happen?
Hazel Blears
Does my hon. Friend agree that there is consensus across the House that the Bill will strengthen the scrutiny of our secret intelligence services and that that is welcomed by everyone? In Committee, the Opposition were forceful in saying that if we are to have increased scrutiny, we need the necessary resources to do the job. The Opposition talked about a figure of £2 million. The Government’s impact assessment has a figure of £1.3 million. There is no agreement on resourcing, and without resourcing, it will be impossible to do the job that the Government want us to do.
Diana Johnson
My right hon. Friend raises an important point to which I hope the Minister will respond. Parliament is trying to reduce its costs by 25% over the course of this Parliament. I wonder whether the money that is being transferred to Parliament will be ring-fenced for the work of the ISC and whether it will be expected to make any savings out of that budget.
Will the Minister also deal with the issue of the staff who will be transferred to support the new Committee? Am I right to assume that TUPE will apply? What discussions has he had with the Clerk of the House about this matter? Has he written to the Clerk of the House formally requesting that he starts to make preparations for such an undertaking?
On the accommodation for the Committee, there are clearly security issues that need to be considered. Does the Minister have any further information about where he envisages the Committee being accommodated? Will any separate secure accommodation have to be provided?
Finally, amendment (a) to amendment 58 would provide for the payment of members of the ISC. It follows on from other amendments that the Opposition have tabled to try to strengthen the role of the ISC within Parliament. The role of chairing the ISC will be every bit as important and time-consuming as chairing any other parliamentary Committee. We therefore feel that it should be recognised in the same way.
At present, the ISC is a statutory body funded by the Cabinet Office. When the responsibility for funding the ISC transfers to Parliament, the responsibility for any payment to the Chair will also be a matter for Parliament. Given what I have said about the procedures of the House, I appreciate that that will probably have to be dealt with through Standing Orders rather than statute. In that case, I will be happy not to press amendment (a). I am sure that the Minister will be able to explain the funding situation.
I will just explain why amendment (a) refers to all members of the Committee and not to the Chair. Again, the Minister might be able to help me on this point if there has been any progress. The amendment covers Members of the House of Lords as well because, unlike Members of the House of Commons, they do not get a flat salary, but receive an attendance allowance. As I understand it, they do not receive that allowance for attending the ISC on days when the Lords is not sitting.
Mr George Howarth
I am sure that the Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that that problem for Members of the House of Lords sitting on the Committee has been resolved within the procedures of the House of Lords.
Diana Johnson
I am grateful if that is the case. If the Minister could explain that, it would be helpful.
Amendment (a) was also drafted to include all members of the Committee in case it is felt appropriate in the future to make payments to members of Select Committees alongside the payments that are made to Chairs.
Minister without Portfolio (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
Before dealing with Government amendment 58, which provides the Government with the necessary powers to make a financial contribution to the Committee, I will add a few words to the interesting and lively debate that we have had on the election of the Chair. I will not repeat every argument. My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) put the case robustly and had some pretty strong support. However, every member of the ISC who is here has responded and he has had to take on some of the more formidable Members on both sides of the House. He is also facing the opposition of all three of the major parties.
I assure him that this is not an establishment stitch-up—quite the reverse. Perhaps the best way of illustrating that is by putting everything in the context of what we are trying to do in this part of the Bill. We are making a remarkable advance in strengthening the powers of this Committee to hold our security and intelligence services to account. For 20 years the Committee has steadily contributed on that front, and we are marching forward considerably in the Bill. This part of it is just as important as the part we debated on Monday, as we are stepping towards making our security services more accountable to Parliament. We are enabling judges, in exceptional cases, to take all the evidence into account and make an adjudication when allegations are made by individuals; and we are committing to holding judicial inquiries when worrying circumstances occur—subject, of course, to those inquiries being able to get under way once police investigations have been properly completed.
These amendments are important, and they are being proposed in the context of a situation where all parties agree that they want this Committee to be a parliamentary Committee and no longer a creature of the Government. We therefore wish to give it more resources and the structure that enables it to do an even better job. The only thing that distinguishes the Committee from a Joint Committee or Select Committee of this House is this problem of the extremely sensitive nature of some of the information that it sees. Only where it is unavoidable are we departing from the normal process of allowing the House of Commons to have a powerful Committee of its own choosing and to exhort it to do its job and report back properly on what is and is not happening in this area.
Hazel Blears
I think we are all agreed that strengthening the scrutiny of the Secret Intelligence Service is an important and welcome step forward. However, I am sure that the right hon. and learned Gentleman would agree that simply saying that we want to increase scrutiny is not enough. Instead of having the right to request information we are moving to a situation where we would be able to require it. We need additional investigators and that will require a substantial increase in the resources available to the Committee. Simply saying that we want increased scrutiny is not enough. I know he understands that, so will he tell us now that we will be getting an increase in resources to enable us to do the job he wants us to do?
Mr Clarke
I encounter many people making bids for resources for their particular, extremely important, activities. My right hon. Friends at the Treasury are receiving a very large number of these bids all the time. I have had some experience of public spending, and I can tell the House that it is not wise to engage in negotiations across the Floor of the House—it is certainly not wise for a non-Treasury Minister to do so. For this purpose, in this debate, given those present, I think we can agree that it is the Government’s intention that this Committee should be properly resourced to do its job, which is why we are taking a power to supplement Parliament’s financing of the Committee. Obviously, the Government have the right to query and test the figures that are put to them, and there are ways in which this can eventually be negotiated.
Dr Lewis
I hope not to get bogged down. I wish to assist our Front-Bench team by pointing out that the Intelligence and Security Committee has eight staff, whereas the detainee inquiry, which looked at only one issue, had 14 staff and the Committee on Standards in Public Life has 12 staff. As the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) pointed out, the Government’s own impact assessment suggested that to do what is being required of us we would need a budget of £1.3 million, which compares with the existing budget of £750,000. At the moment only £850,000 is being offered, and if the gap is not bridged, this whole reform will be a waste of time.
Mr Clarke
I can say only that I, like my right hon. and hon. Friends, am fully aware of the Committee’s views on the amount of funding that it will require. Yet again, I take note of my hon. Friend’s points on the matter, but I repeat that there is not much point in my standing here carrying out a negotiation with him or any other member of the Committee about the figure we arrive at. As someone who has been at the Treasury, I think that the Government must combine providing the right resources, which are undoubtedly going to be more than the Committee has had in the past, with doing a bit of negotiating about what is the necessary cost. Report stage is not the place to resolve the final figure.
Similarly, the status and nature of the Committee will not be resolved finally by statute or by debate on the Floor of the House. A long discussion has been going on to make sure that the Committee has the right status and structure to do its job effectively, and I think we are very near to reaching a successful agreement between the Government, the Opposition, the House authorities in both Houses of Parliament and the current members of the Intelligence and Security Committee on what its status should be. I am told that we still have to have further discussions with the House of Commons Commission and the House Committee in the House of Lords, but I think everybody is becoming satisfied that we are resolving that matter. We are also resolving the question of the accommodation, which probably will have to be on the Government’s estate rather than the parliamentary estate, for security reasons. I will go into more details if hon. Members wish, but I realise that we still have quite a lot of the Bill to deal with. Unless hon. Members are particularly interested in knowing the precise current status of these discussions, I hope I may take it that the House is reasonably satisfied that all parties are going to reach a satisfactory conclusion. I assure the House that the Government have been anxious throughout to make this Committee powerful, properly resourced and as much of a parliamentary body—a body that is accountable and resembles the Select Committees of the House in every way possible—as it can be. I think that soon this will all be resolved.
I shall now deal with amendment (a), tabled by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), although she anticipated my reply. Government amendment 58 is required in order to give us the necessary authority to make the financial contributions that we are going to be arguing about. Amendment (a) seeks to oblige the Government—or at least expressly to empower them—to make an additional amount available for the payment of Committee members. That is not necessary, nor, in my opinion and that of the Government, is it wise to start putting the matter of the payment of members of Select Committees or parliamentary Committees into statute, or implicating the Government directly in that. The payment of members of this Committee, the Chairman of this Committee and members of Select Committees is a matter for the House of Commons, the House of Lords and the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority—from every point of view, it is best left there. Where the Government have to initiate all this, it is a feature of all Governments, of all political complexions, that they can get very politically embarrassed on questions about the remuneration of any Member of either House. So a process that leaves the matter with IPSA and the House of Commons is preferable to the hon. Lady’s amendment.
Finally, I shall touch on the spirit of political debate we have had on the question of whether the Chairman should be elected, and again I must say that the Wright Committee produced a splendid report. My hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) first proposed this, but he is not able to be here because he is serving on his Banking Commission, as we all realise. We worked together, when we were in opposition, with my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young), who is now the Government Chief Whip, on a thing called the democracy taskforce, advocating the election of Chairman of Select Committees and producing proposals that were remarkably close to those of the Wright Committee. I certainly start on the same basis as my colleagues who have been drawn to this part of the debate, but we have heard all the arguments why, in this particular case, the proposal does not work. We are already making the whole thing approved by Parliament. No longer will the Prime Minister appoint the Chairman; the Chairman will be elected by those who know—or will know—him best: members of the ISC.
Steve Baker
It is clear from the amendment that we do not seek to allow the House of Commons to elect anybody, and it is not a veto but an opportunity for the Prime Minister to approve candidates. Such a mechanism could take place in private; it would not need to be all over the front pages that someone had been turned down. The process could be done beforehand and the candidate would just have to obtain formal written consent for them to stand.
Mr Clarke
My hon. Friend is confident that if someone starts campaigning and positioning himself or herself for this job, but then suddenly stops campaigning because the Prime Minister puts an end to it, it will all remain secret and no one will accuse the Prime Minister of political bias—whereas actually they will, and everybody will realise that something about the candidate has caused the agencies successfully to blackball him or her. We cannot agree to that. Some of the Members I am talking about have served in government and would have been perfectly suitable to be Chair of the Health or Education Committees, but partly because of the job I was once in, I knew that I would not have put them on this particular Select Committee and would have wanted the Prime Minister to stop that appointment. I do not think there is an answer to that.
The system has been devised in such a way because Members on both sides of the House, and current members of the Committee, have done their best to make this as democratic and parliamentary as we possibly can. The Wright Committee has transformed things in this House. The Government have introduced the election of Select Committees and they are being made more powerful. Alongside that reform, we are making the Intelligence and Security Committee far more parliamentary and powerful. The fact that there is a comparatively detailed difference in the way that Parliament votes for the Committee members and how the Chair is elected does not undermine the policy and the Bill.
I hope I have explained why everybody involved, including those on the Opposition Front Benches and my allies in the Liberal Democrat party, have been driven to the conclusion that this is the best way of resolving the problem and moving to a decent amount of parliamentary democracy, without jeopardising our national interest. I therefore hope I can persuade my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe to withdraw the amendment and persuade the House to give the Government power to continue negotiating these finances by accepting amendment 58.
Steve Baker
Not for the first time I have made common cause with a well-known Member from the left of the Labour party, and I am grateful that on this occasion I have done that for the first time with the hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick). I was also grateful for the support from my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady), who brings to bear his experience from the Wright Committee.
Some of the arguments against these elections have been somewhat ingenious, and I shall treasure Hansard tomorrow when I look at the remarks of the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell), who I think brilliantly set out the advantages of appointment over democracy. I shall look at that with some joy. We have all understood what the Bill provides; it certainly takes us forward although, as I have said, I would prefer the Chair to be elected in the way that I outlined. I am glad we have held this debate and aired the issue.
The Opposition have said that this provision puts the cart before the horse, but they did acknowledge the context, which is crucial. We have seen encroachments on the principles of liberty and justice, which many of us thought we were sworn to defend. However, in the view of this Government, and the previous Government, such measures have proven necessary to protect the public, and we are where we are. With that in mind, and having listened to both Front-Bench speakers, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 1
The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament
James Brokenshire
I beg to move amendment 56, in schedule 1, page 16, line 31, leave out ‘(6)’ and insert ‘(5)’.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government amendment 57
Amendment 75, page 17, line 38, leave out from ‘ISC’ to end of line 43.
Amendment 73, page 18, line 34, leave out from ‘private’ to end of line 3 on page 19 and insert ‘from a person subject to the Official Secrets Act 1989.
‘(2) The ISC may only publish or disclose the information—
(a) by way of a report under section 3,
(b) if the ISC and the Prime Minister are satisfied that publication or disclosure would not be prejudicial to the continued discharge of the functions of the Security Service, the Secret Intelligence Service, the Government Communications Headquarters or any person carrying out activities falling within section 2(2), or
(c) if publication or disclosure is necessary for the ISC to comply with any enactment or rule of law.’.
Government amendments 59 and 60
Amendment 76, page 19, leave out from line 4 to end of line 7 and add—
‘Protection for proceedings of the ISC
6 No part of the proceedings of the ISC, including evidence given to the ISC may be used in any civil, criminal or disciplinary proceedings, except in the case of evidence given in bad faith.’.
Government amendments 61, 62 and 55
Amendment 71, in clause 2, page 2, line 29, at end insert—
‘(4A) Subsections (3) and (4) do not apply where a plausible claim has been made by or on behalf of an individual to the ISC that the Security Service, the Secret Intelligence Service or the Government Communications Headquarters has disseminated any information to any recipient concerning any person that appears to be—
(a) materially false; and
(b) harmful to the person defamed.
(4B) In any case where subsection (4A) applies, the ISC shall fully and expeditiously investigate the claim and, where the claim appears to be well founded, shall ensure that the misinformation is expeditiously corrected.’.
Amendment 74, page 2, line 29, at end insert—
‘(4A) The ISC shall consider the proposed appointment of the following, including by questioning the prospective appointee at a meeting of the ISC—
(a) the Head of the Security Service;
(b) the Head of the Secret Intelligence Service;
(c) the Head of the Government Communications Headquarters; and
(d) such other persons as the Prime Minister may direct.
(4B) The ISC may consider the appropriateness of holding hearings considering each prospective appointee’s proposed appointment in public.’.
Government amendments 63 and 64.
James Brokenshire
After that interesting debate about the basis for the important reforms that are taking place to strengthen the scrutiny, and perhaps some of the principles behind measures in the Bill relating to the parliamentary ISC, we will now consider a number of amendments that touch on procedural matters relating to the functions and operation of the ISC. I apologise to the House in advance that I will touch on a range of different points. I know that a number of other amendments have been grouped for this debate, so I will touch briefly on those and then reflect on points made in the debate. If time allows, I hope to respond to any further points that may arise.
Amendments 56 and 57 were originally tabled on Report in the other place and Lord Taylor highlighted that one possible consequence of the change in the Bill to refer to the Intelligence and Security Committee “of Parliament” could be that the ISC would have the power to take evidence on oath. However, further analysis concluded that the consequence of changing the ISC to a statutory Committee of Parliament would be that the ISC may, in future, take evidence on oath. Our view was that, when taken together, the Parliamentary Witnesses Oaths Act 1871, which concerns the power of Committees of the House of Commons to administer oaths, and its Lords equivalent, the Parliamentary Witnesses Act 1858, would give the ISC the authority to administer oaths.
However, the House services raised a concern with the Government about that provision and disagreed with our analysis that the change to “of Parliament” would give the ISC the authority to take evidence on oath. They believe that the Bill should contain an express power for the ISC to take such evidence. Following further discussions in response to that point, and with the intent of putting this issue beyond doubt, we have decided to address the concern of the parliamentary authorities by tabling amendment 57, which puts the ISC’s power to take evidence on oath beyond doubt.
The amendment makes it unnecessary to specify in the Bill who has the power to administer oaths on behalf of the ISC, as there is no longer any need to displace the provision in the relevant statutory authorities. Amendment 56 makes procedure in relation to the ISC hearing evidence on oath a matter for the ISC to determine, pursuant to paragraph 2(1) of schedule 1.
An amendment was agreed in Committee that places restrictions on the ISC’s ability to publish material that it receives in connection with the exercise of its functions, other than through its reports. We had a useful debate in Committee, which highlighted some of the issues and challenges and recognised the need for safeguards to ensure that sensitive material was not inadvertently disclosed, as well as the need for the ISC to be able to fulfil its duties.
The amendment addresses a consequence of the ISC being a statutory Committee of Parliament. In that context, the ISC will have a general power to publish information, which will sit alongside its express power to publish reports to Parliament. Absent the restriction, which is now contained in paragraph 5 of schedule 1 to the Bill, under that general power the ISC would have been able to publish evidence it has received other than through its reports to Parliament. Following concerns raised by my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), I was able to provide assurance that it was not the Government’s intention that the amendment would inhibit or limit some of the existing practices of the ISC, and made a commitment to look at the language to see whether there was any way of giving further assurance. I have considered that matter and, as a consequence, we have tabled amendment 60.
Amendment 60 would provide a further gateway allowing publication or disclosure where the Prime Minister and the ISC agree that this would not cause prejudice to the functions of the agencies or other Government security and intelligence bodies. This is the same criterion that is used in clause 3(4) of the Bill which allows the Prime Minister, after consultation with the ISC, to require that the ISC must exclude a matter from any report to Parliament.
The consequence of amendment 60 would therefore be that the ISC would be able to publish informally—for example, in an open letter—any information which, ultimately, it would be permitted to include in its reports to Parliament. As I have said, the criteria are exactly the same. I recognise the concern to ensure that the existing arrangements for the ISC and the steps that it takes are maintained, and that is in part reflected in amendment 73, tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) with the support—I believe—of the existing members of the ISC. While I am sympathetic to the intentions, and have had several discussions with my right hon. and learned Friend to work out some suitable language to address the issues, our view of amendment 73 is that it would have some unintended consequences. In its current form, the amendment would widen the net in a way that I suspect the ISC had not anticipated.
I shall return to the principle after I have gone through some of the technical issues that have been identified. The amendment refers to information received by the ISC
“from a person subject to the Official Secrets Act 1989.”
While I appreciate the intention behind the amendment, that phrase suggests that the prohibition should apply to any person inside or outside Government who had ever known, or been in a position to know, any classified information. Unfortunately, the effect of the amendment would be slightly different. The Official Secrets Act 1989 contains prohibitions of general application, most notably in section 5, and it extends to the whole UK. It even apparently covers some acts done outside the UK by British citizens or Crown servants. It would therefore cover information beyond the purview and structure anticipated. It would cover all information supplied by a person who has, at any time, been in a position to have access to classified information. Information supplied to the ISC by such a person will be covered by the prohibition whether or not it is in fact classified information, and whether or not it even came to that person in connection with the role in which they had or could have had access to classified information.
Dr Julian Lewis
I accept the validity of what my hon. Friend says, but the problem is that in that formulation the ISC was trying to do away with a similar problem with the Government’s wording, which suggests that all information that the ISC receives in private is subject to these restrictions. The whole point of what we are trying to say is that it should apply only to classified or sensitive information that we receive in private. Other information that we receive in private, such as from victims of the 7/7 bombing, should not be restricted in that way. Even though my hon. Friend makes a valid point against the wording that we have offered, the same point still applies to the Government’s wording.
James Brokenshire
My hon. Friend, in his customary way, has highlighted the genuine challenges that both the Government and ISC members have had in seeking to frame legislation, which can be a challenging mechanism within which to express matters effectively. He rightly points out the evidence given by the families of the victims of 7/7 and those who were sadly caught up in that terrible event. There have also been discussions of the evidence taken from communication service providers during the ISC’s recent inquiry into communications data, including whether the information provided was sensitive. It is a challenge at times to analyse evidence from third parties to decide whether evidence is sensitive and thus not suitable for disclosure. Sometimes that is clear, but sometimes it is not.
Hazel Blears
I am following the Minister’s argument closely, and I acknowledge that it is difficult to get the right legislative framework for this area. I wish to reinforce the point made by the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) that part of the change we are seeking to achieve is to make the Committee more independent. The consequence of the provision that all information in private will be covered means that the decisions can be made by the Government rather than the Committee. We must have a clear delineation of information that belongs to the Committee, which can then decide what to do with that information. No matter how hard this is, I hope that the Minister will be creative and ingenious enough to provide clarity. Such information is not the Government’s information: it is for the Committee to decide.
James Brokenshire
I hear the point that the right hon. Lady makes. The intent of the changes in the Bill is to underline the greater scrutiny and the import of the ISC as a Committee of Parliament in fulfilling its work, and therefore ensuring that it has an appropriate mechanism for the publication of information relating to its deliberations. As we have already discussed, sometimes there are challenges on evidence given, perhaps in private, and we had some useful debates in Committee on public hearings. We hope that we will be able to work with the newly formed ISC to have public evidence hearings for some evidence that has previously always been held in private. I acknowledge that most evidence would probably still continue to be heard in private because of the very nature of the materials provided, but we want to look at ways to make hearings more public to show the important scrutiny that is provided by the ISC, and thus to enhance visibility, transparency and confidence in the scrutiny role.
Sir Menzies Campbell
Perhaps I might endorse the Minister’s enthusiasm for the public hearings, which would constitute a complete departure from what has previously been the case and provide an interesting opportunity for that greater degree of public interest and public understanding. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) has had to leave because of another commitment, but it is my understanding that he has been in informal discussions with the Minister about the issues raised by amendment 73. Am I right in understanding that it is possible for those discussions to continue and that consideration may be given in another place to an amendment that would satisfy both the Government and the Committee?
James Brokenshire
Informal discussions have taken place to work through the detailed and technical issues that need proper consideration and ensure we strike the right balance. I welcome that dialogue. Before I return to the substance of my right hon. and learned Friend’s point and respond formally, I will take an intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field).
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
I hope the Minister will recognise that the concern expressed by all of us as members of the Intelligence and Security Committee is that the terms of the Bill are far too broad. If the Government remain unwilling to go along with amendment 73, will he give some consideration to these issues being dealt with in detail in the memorandum of understanding? It may be that some of the technical difficulties to which he referred would be more appropriately dealt with in that forum.
James Brokenshire
I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. There is scope to deal with this further in the memorandum of understanding. I reiterate that it is not the Government’s intention to try and stop the ISC from continuing to do things in the way that it does at the moment as a consequence of the changes contemplated in the Bill, and I am content to reflect on providing further clarity in the memorandum of understanding to address some of those technical points. We have a framework in the legislation. While we may have found it challenging to get the precise legal wording right for an amendment because of those technical areas, I am willing to reflect on how we can seek to encapsulate the existing arrangements, under which the ISC conducts its affairs, in the memorandum of understanding.
These exchanges highlight some of the difficulties in putting changes in the Bill in a rigid way. In some ways, because of the nature of the evidence, they probably lend themselves to being addressed more effectively in the memorandum of understanding. If it will help the House, I am happy to give that commitment on how we may best address those challenges in greater detail in the memorandum of understanding. I hope right hon. and hon. Members will accept the spirit in which that commitment is given.
Sir Menzies Campbell
In the absence of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington, may I say how grateful the Committee is for the attitude displayed by the Minister? We await the resolution with interest. We have a common intention; it is just a question of making sure we frame it in a way that satisfies all other criteria.
James Brokenshire
I understand. I look forward to continuing informal discussions, and hope that agreement on the memorandum of understanding on the operations of the ISC in Parliament will be resolved quickly.
Government amendment 59 is a technical, clarificatory amendment that makes clear how paragraph 5(2) of schedule 1 will operate. The insertion of the word “otherwise” puts beyond doubt certain technical issues that have been highlighted, so I will not take up the House’s time and go through it in detail.
On Government amendments 61, 62 and amendment 76, in Committee, a Government amendment was agreed to provide protection to witnesses before the ISC. It will prevent evidence given by a witness before the ISC from being used against them in any criminal, civil or disciplinary proceedings, unless it was given in bad faith. The provision, now in paragraph 6 of schedule 1, replicates an important part of the protection that witnesses before a Select Committee would have, by virtue of a Select Committee’s proceedings being subject to parliamentary privilege. In doing so, that will encourage witnesses appearing before the ISC to be full and frank in the evidence that they provide. It is perhaps worth stressing that witnesses before the ISC currently enjoy no special protections with regard to the subsequent use of their evidence.
The amendment made in Committee was therefore an important change to ensure that the ISC is able to perform its oversight function even more effectively, because the fuller and more candid the evidence the ISC receives, the more effective it is likely to be in supervising the security and intelligence community. During the debate in Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East and the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) questioned whether the protection went far enough. In response, I made a commitment to reflect carefully on the points that were made. I have considered whether further protection could be given to witnesses’ evidence, preventing its disclosure for the purposes of any legal proceedings; in other words, not merely legal proceedings where the evidence would be used against the particular witness. I am happy to confirm to the House that, while we concluded that such a protection would be problematic in terms of compatibility with the European convention on human rights in relation to criminal proceedings, we are satisfied that it will be compatible for civil and disciplinary proceedings.
Government amendment 61 therefore introduces a statutory protection for evidence given by witnesses to the ISC, preventing its disclosure for the purposes of any civil or disciplinary proceedings. That protection applies not merely to civil and disciplinary proceedings where the evidence would be used against the particular witness, but to all such proceedings. As a result, the existing prohibition on the use of evidence against the witness needs only to deal with use of evidence in criminal proceedings, since the wider protection given by the provision introduced by Government amendment 61 will cover use of evidence against a witness in civil or disciplinary proceedings. Government amendment 62 makes the necessary consequential changes.
As amended, paragraph 6 of schedule 1 will therefore provide a statutory protection for evidence given by witnesses to the ISC, preventing its disclosure for the purposes of any civil or disciplinary proceedings. In addition, evidence given by a witness before the ISC will not be able to be used against that witness in criminal proceedings. Of course, evidence that is deliberately misleading is of no assistance to the ISC. Accordingly, the protections do not apply to evidence given in bad faith. It is important to explain the context in which the drafting has been framed.
It may be that others will argue that this further protection, while welcome, does not go far enough. Indeed, I note that the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) has tabled an amendment that would extend the protection even further, and no doubt the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North will wish to speak to that. All I will say at this stage—obviously, I will listen to what the hon. Lady says in her speech—is that we believe there is a significant issue of compatibility with the European convention on human rights. For example, it is possible that criminal proceedings against an individual could hinge on the testimony of a particular witness who has given inconsistent evidence to the ISC about broadly the same matters. If approved, this protection in the proposed amendment would prevent the inconsistent evidence given before the ISC from being used by the defence in the criminal proceedings to discredit the witness.
That would lead to obvious unfairness for the defendant in criminal proceedings. We do not believe that our preferred protection on this issue runs into that problem, because of the nature of its framing and the protections against self-incrimination. The ECHR has recognised that the privilege against self-incrimination lies at the heart of the notion of a fair trial. By providing the accused with protection against improper compulsion by the authorities and thereby avoiding miscarriages of justice, the existing protection secures the aims of article 6, whereas we judge that amendment 76 would run into challenges and issues in that way.
Dr Julian Lewis
Does the Minister agree that this is a similar dilemma to the one we faced on the question of publicity? The Opposition’s amendment might go too far, but we on the Committee feel that what the Government propose does too little. It protects witnesses against their evidence being used against them, but falls short—as the Minister seems to be conceding—of the protection the Committee would have if it were a Select Committee. Will he undertake to come back with something else at a later stage—perhaps in the other place—that would be a better compromise between those two positions?
James Brokenshire
I fully respect what my hon. Friend has said. We have given careful consideration, at length, to the statutory protections afforded to the ISC through this Bill. He will remember the debates we had in Committee about issues under the Data Protection Act and the Freedom of Information Act, along with a number of other statutory provisions, which we believed needed to be addressed to afford the ISC a number of additional protections. Although I very much hear what he says, the Government believe that we have taken this as far as we can through our amendments—and within the remit of article 6 of the ECHR, for example—to afford those protections and frame the provisions. I note the concern he has raised; all I would say is that the Government have taken some additional steps—on things that the existing Committee does not currently have—in how the Bill is framed to move the Committee as close as we can, within the framework of law, to provide the relevant protections.
As members of the ISC who are here today will recognise, consideration was given to how one might approach the issue of parliamentary privilege. Indeed, there was a lengthy debate in the other place on that issue. There is a broad recognition that trying to define parliamentary privilege in statute would open a whole new array of issues. Indeed, I do not think this House would welcome an attempt to frame the privileges that reside in this place by way of an Act of Parliament, which might be subject to further litigation and challenge, which not only might have an effect simply on the ISC but could have a limiting effect on parliamentary privilege for broader issues in this House. When considering this issue, everyone involved in the examination of the Bill thought that that would be a very unfortunate step to take. Therefore, the Government have thereafter sought to approach the issue by framing matters within existing legislative frameworks.
Sir Menzies Campbell
I just want to advise the Minister—who might not need advising—and the House that there is a Joint Committee of both Houses wrestling with precisely the problem he has just outlined, and it would not have made a great deal of sense for this Bill to proceed in a way that pre-empted any conclusions reached by the Committee.
James Brokenshire
I entirely agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman; hence the reason the Government have taken the approach they have.
Let me turn briefly to amendment 55, which concerns the ISC’s ability to oversee operational matters. With the amendments, the Bill now provides for three routes by which the ISC may consider particular operational matters. The first is where the Prime Minister and the ISC are agreed that the matter is of significant national interest and not part of any ongoing intelligence and security operations. The second route is where the Government request the ISC to consider a matter notwithstanding the fact that those criteria are not met. The third is where the ISC’s consideration of an operational matter is limited to considering information provided to it voluntarily by the agencies or another Department.
That additional route was provided to meet a further concern of the ISC—that the requirement that both the ISC and the Prime Minister should be satisfied that the criteria for oversight of operational matters had been met risked slowing the provision of information to the ISC on routine operational matters. Obviously that already happens now; the concern was that not framing the third limb might hinder it. We therefore made an amendment in Committee to address that third point. The key issue is that, as has been highlighted, for the first two categories there is the ability to require further information to be given, whereas for the third limb—because, in essence, information is provided without being compelled—those further requirements did not operate. That is why the structure has been framed in this way.
My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East expressed some concern about the term “voluntarily”. I think his point was that this was in some way a presentational issue—that we understood what we were talking about when it came to information that would ordinarily be provided to the Committee. We have reflected on that point; hence the reason for a further amendment to try to clarify rights of access.
Hazel Blears
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his explicit recognition of the fact that the Committee has had access to operational information for some considerable time, despite the fact that no such provision is in the current legislation. The Committee remains concerned about the use of the word “voluntarily”, and I had hoped that the Government would withdraw it from the Bill. It goes against the whole spirit of the direction in which we are moving, from the right to request information to the right to require it. That is a small change on the face of it, but it is actually a big, transformational step. I do not think that the word “voluntarily” is necessary in the Bill; it is superfluous and its retention goes against the direction of travel, in that the agencies will voluntarily be able to decide whether to provide information. That is not the relationship that we currently have with the agencies, let alone the one that we want for the future. I ask the Minister to think again. Why does he want the word “voluntarily” in there when we acknowledge that for the issues in question, this is a matter of requesting information just as we do now?
James Brokenshire
As the right hon. Lady says, the Committee already receives information on ongoing operational matters, and that would fall short of the requirements in the first two limbs that I have described. She will have seen the Government’s amendment that seeks to reflect the existing work that takes place and the information that is provided. As always with legislation, this is a question of the wording and the way in which matters are interpreted by lawyers, as well as by Members of Parliament. The provision is in no way intended to cut across the Committee’s existing work or the existing flow of information when a request for further clarification has been made. It is intended to provide a distinction between the first two limbs, which will contain an element of further requirement, and the third limb, in which information will be provided because it has been requested rather than required, and in which further investigations will be limited to using the information that has been so provided.
Mr George Howarth
I am following the Minister’s argument closely. It would be helpful if he told us how he envisages a situation being resolved where an agency decides voluntarily not to provide information that the Committee feels is important. There might be a mechanism for doing that but, off the top of my head, I am not sure what it is.
James Brokenshire
This relates to operational matters and inquiries by the Committee. We have had discussions about the exploration of operational matters—this is a new aspect of the Committee’s work, as the right hon. Gentleman will acknowledge—and about how to frame that. Detailed consideration has been given to the specific matters that an inquiry may cover, and that is supplemented by the memorandum of understanding in respect of the first two limbs. Clause 2(3)(c) is intended to cover the ordinary information that is being provided. I think it was accepted in Committee that that paragraph dealt with the concerns of the ISC about ordinary matters that would be provided in that course. It states that
“the ISC’s consideration of the matter is limited to the consideration of information provided voluntarily to the ISC by”
the agencies, following those kinds of inquiries. These are issues that have customarily been dealt with by the Committee in its ordinary course. A relationship is established between the Committee and the agencies, and information is provided in that ordinary course, and we have sought to reflect the current practice.
Mark Field
The Minister will have gathered from the contributions from the right hon. Members for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) and for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) that the Committee currently goes well beyond the constraints of the original legislation. Does he recognise that the use of the word “voluntarily” will give rise to concern outside this place that the Committee remains the poodle of the Executive or, to a certain extent, of the security services? He is right to suggest that it will make relatively little difference to general day-to-day operations, but one of the ideas behind the Bill was to make it crystal clear that we are not a poodle of the Executive or the Prime Minister of the day, and that we are not under the control of the security services. The whole idea of this is that we should be in a position to demand, and ensure that we get, material, rather than being at anyone else’s beck and call.
James Brokenshire
I absolutely agree and direct my hon. Friend to the provisions in schedule 1, particularly the part on access to information, which sets out clearly the rights of the ISC to obtain further information. That clear reform has been taken forward through the Bill. I would certainly endorse and underline my hon. Friend’s point. The ISC has not been a poodle in any sense in its existing format and that position would be strengthened even further under the Bill. The ultimate purpose of the reforms it contains is to ensure that scrutiny is enhanced further—for the very important reasons we have discussed.
James Brokenshire
I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Lady, but then, because of time considerations, I should let other right hon. and hon. Members contribute.
Paul Murphy
I am grateful. Does the Minister not accept that the word “voluntarily” goes against the spirit of the Bill and the spirit of the memorandum? Perhaps he should reflect a bit further on it.
James Brokenshire
I take note of that point, but let me take the right hon. Lady’s intervention before I respond. She is likely to make a similar point, so I might as well take the two together.
Hazel Blears
The Minister is likely to face a unanimous view on this issue—certainly from members of the Committee. The use of the word “voluntarily” creates entirely the wrong impression of the direction of the Bill. It is superfluous; the Government do not need “voluntarily”. In the past, the ISC has sometimes received partial information from the security services that has affected the Committee’s decision-making. Voluntarily means “you can if you like; and if you don’t want to, you don’t have to”. Use of that word in the Bill is superfluous to requirements and sends out entirely the wrong message.
James Brokenshire
In their contributions this afternoon, members of the ISC have clearly underlined the robust scrutiny that is provided. These provisions relate only to operational matters—the new element added to the overall purview of the ISC that will result from the Bill. I have already highlighted the importance of clause 2(3)(a) and (b) for the two limbs, which covers the ability to require the provision of further information. If other more general inquiries take place, the provisions for the third limb are intended to denote the fact that the request to the agencies would not fall under the first two elements of the three limbs. It is a separate category.
James Brokenshire
I am conscious of how long I have already spoken for, but I will give way one last time.
Paul Goggins
The Minister has been generous and is providing an excellent defence of his position, but he does not need to be defensive because we know he is not being obstructive and is genuinely trying to find a way forward. He really should consider carefully, however, taking out the word “voluntarily” and then setting out his concerns in the memorandum of understanding. It is quite clear that it could be done in that way, so I urge him to consider doing it.
James Brokenshire
I hear the clear statements, but I have sought to respond in an equally clear fashion on why we judge that the need for that word still remains. Right hon. and hon. Members have argued loudly and clearly across the House in what I believe has been a good public demonstration of the clear and robust challenge that the ISC provides to Ministers and to members of the security agencies. I welcome the exchange we have had to underline the clear and focused challenge that will no doubt be given and enhanced as a result of the provisions.
I note that the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) has tabled amendment 71. Rather than delay her presentation further, I will if I may respond to the points she raises in my summing up, although I have already taken up a great deal of the House’s time. With those comments, I support Government amendment 56.
Diana Johnson
I want to discuss amendment 75, which deals with the Osmotherly rules, amendment 76, which deals with the protection of ISC proceedings, and amendment 74, which deals with pre-appointment hearings.
Amendment 75, tabled by me and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), would remove the Government’s ability to refuse to disclose information to the ISC when it is information “not proper” to be disclosed to a Select Committee under the Osmotherly rules. The Bill currently allows a Minister to withhold information if
“it is information of such a nature that, if the Secretary of State were requested to produce it before a Departmental Select Committee of the House of Commons, the Secretary of State would consider (on grounds which were not limited to national security) it proper not to do so.”
What Ministers are able to disclose to Select Committees is governed by those famous Osmotherly rules, which we discussed in Committee. There are three reasons for withholding information: disproportionate cost, the fact that the information is sub judice, and the fact that it relates to a previous Administration. Our amendment would rule out the use of the Osmotherly rules altogether, although we would be happy for an agreement on cost to be included in the memorandum of understanding, which would achieve the same result.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
The so-called Osmotherly rules were devised by the Executive but were never accepted in any form by Parliament, and were not considered by Parliament’s Committees to have any binding force.
Diana Johnson
That is an interesting point, but because of the way in which the Bill is drafted and because of the references that have been made to the use of the Osmotherly rules, we think that there is a case for excluding them completely from the Minister’s decision making.
We do not think that sub judice information should be excluded from the ISC’s hearings, because that might may prevent it from seeing particularly important information. As significant procedures exist to ensure that information will be protected, we should not worry about the ISC seeing the information if it would assist it. We also feel that the ISC should have access to information held by previous Administrations, for two main reasons. First, the matters that the ISC investigates are rarely politically sensitive, although they will be sensitive in other ways. Secondly, the ISC will often be able to investigate an issue only after a change of Administration. Its role is usually retrospective, which means that there will often be a long delay before it can begin an investigation.
Sir Alan Beith
The ISC has, on occasion, sought permission from Ministers in a previous Administration to obtain access to material, and indeed has been given it, only to find that current Ministers decline to give permission on other grounds.
Diana Johnson
It is helpful to know that. However, time is pressing, so I shall move on to amendment 76. The Minister spent a fair amount of time discussing the amendment and the issues that he considered arose from it. It would exempt all proceedings of the ISC from civil, criminal or disciplinary proceedings¸ which would protect members of the Committee, staff of the Committee, and evidence held by the Committee. In that respect, it extends the protections that the Government inserted in the Bill in Committee, which have now been refined in their amendments 61 and 62.
Before I go into the details of the difference between amendment 76 and the Government amendments, I should establish why these protections are important. They are important because we want witnesses to be able to give full and frank evidence to the Committee, and we want the Committee to be able to receive evidence in confidence. It may be helpful to compare the provisions governing the ISC to the provisions governing Select Committees. Evidence given to Select Committees, whether written or oral, is subject to parliamentary privilege, which means that the evidence cannot be used in any court proceedings against the witness or anyone else.
This is a central tenet of our democracy and allows witnesses to give the frankest possible answers without fear of reprisals. Witnesses giving evidence to the ISC are likely to be particularly mindful of the legal obligations on them. Evidence is likely to be covered by the Official Secrets Act and, technically, an offence would be committed every time a witness exceeded the explicit permission they had been given, which could be frequent.
This may not be the only restriction on a witness’s ability to give evidence. Restrictions are likely to be contained within the witness’s employment contract and the civil service code. Such restrictions have the potential to pose two problems to the ISC. First, they could slow down or prohibit witnesses where there is no genuine need for them not to be able to divulge evidence but it is not clear they have the legal authority. Secondly, they could prevent the Committee from taking evidence from whistleblowers. In recognition of these difficulties, in Committee the Government tabled amendments introducing statutory protection for witnesses, exempting evidence they provided to the Committee from civil, disciplinary or criminal proceedings. Amendments 61 and 62 refine that. They maintain the complete exemption from civil or disciplinary proceedings, but limit the exemption in criminal proceedings to action taken against the witness.
The Opposition welcomed the introduction of these protections and accept the refinements made today, but it is important that the House realises that these protections fall far short of those enjoyed by Select Committees and leave many unanswered questions. It is also important to realise that because these are statutory protections and not privilege, it would be possible for the Government or an agency to obtain an injunction preventing a witness from appearing before the Committee.
As I have stated, parliamentary privilege covers all the proceedings of a Select Committee, and it is important to realise what that means in practice. It means the evidence presented to a Select Committee is covered by privilege. That is not any document submitted to the Committee, but documents accepted by the Committee as evidence. Privilege also covers all proceedings of the Committee, including advice given by the Clerks to members of the Committee and actions of members while serving on the Committee.
I highlight these areas because it is not at all clear to me what alternative protections are given to the ISC in such situations. I would like to ask the Minister about a hypothetical situation where the ISC receives classified information relating to serious wrongdoing on the part of an element of the security agencies. Let us say, for example, the ISC were anonymously to receive Secret Intelligence Service transcripts indicating an agent had committed torture. I am not saying this has ever happened; I just want the Minister to say what would happen if it were the case.
It is questionable whether the ISC would be able to act on the evidence it received. That would depend on the provisions in clause 2. These documents may be directly related to an investigation the ISC was already undertaking, but that is not the question I want to focus on here: I am asking whether the ISC is even in a position to accept these documents.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
Would the effect of amendment 76 be that if, for example, the ISC uncovered evidence of collusion in torture, that evidence could not be used in a court case?
Diana Johnson
I have tabled this amendment because I am not satisfied that the provisions the Government have proposed so far offer the type of protection that this Committee needs. I heard what the Minister said, and his response seemed to be that the amendment was drafted too broadly. I do not have the back-up of learned counsel in drafting amendments, and I want the Minister to explain what kind of protections are available and what their effect would be in the circumstances I have described.
It is questionable whether the ISC would be able to act on evidence it received. I hope the Minister will address that point and explain the impact of the clause 2 provisions. The documents might relate to an ISC investigation, which might be relevant to whether it would be possible to put the documents forward and examine them.
ISC staff members will be signatories to the Official Secrets Act. It is my understanding that parliamentary Clerks would be protected as soon as the document was taken into evidence, but no such protection is available to the ISC Clerk. Is that correct? If a staff member who received documents decided to pass them on to the Chair of the ISC, will the Minister confirm that they would be doing that without lawful authority and would therefore be in breach of the Official Secrets Act?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. There are four Members trying to catch my eye on this set of amendments and the knife falls at 4 o’clock, so I ask Members to be conscious of the time that they take to make their case in order to allow the Minister to respond.
Dr Julian Lewis
I shall be brief. On amendment 73, in the light of the undertaking given by the Minister to my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) that the publication issues will be addressed in the memorandum of understanding, I am say on behalf of colleagues that we do not propose to press that amendment.
On the question of taking evidence on oath, I think I speak for colleagues on the Committee in saying that we are entirely happy with what the Government propose. On the use of the word “voluntary”, I can only re-emphasise what has been said by many other colleagues. The Minister endeavoured to explain to the House why this applies only to that part of our duties that relate to operational matters. All I can say to him and to the Government is that we will be spending an awful lot of our time trying to fend off critics who, wilfully or otherwise, choose to interpret the presence of the word “voluntarily” on the face of the Bill as implying that we do not have the ability to force the agencies to comply with our requests, when in most cases we do. There must be a simpler and less emotive term that can be used to express the same purpose, without leaving us open to such unjustified criticism.
On the question of privilege, I am still concerned, as are the Opposition, that sufficient measures have not been taken to empower the Committee and protect the Committee to anything like the same extent. For example, when the Committee discusses people’s possible involvement in serious criminal activity, could we end up in a situation in which some of our proceedings that involve statements —not from witnesses, but from Committee members—that in the ordinary course of events might be regarded as defamatory may result in court proceedings being taken against members in a way that would not be possible with members of a Select Committee in analogous circumstances? If we could end up in such a situation, the Government need to consider that problem very seriously indeed and do something about it at a later stage. I hope that the Minister will refer to that in his closing remarks.
On the question of pre-appointment hearings, I do not believe that the Committee has taken a corporate view as such, but one point must be made, and made strongly: this would add to the work load of the Committee’s staff. The Committee, as has been made crystal clear today, is already grotesquely understaffed by comparison with comparable committees and organisations in this country and in Europe. Therefore, were we to take on that further burden, we would definitely need better proposals for resourcing it than those that are currently ready.
The Opposition are quite right to resist amendment 71, because individual complaints against the agencies, such as that involving Binyam Mohamed, are not the responsibility of the ISC; they fall within the statutory remit of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. That is the correct body to deal with such matters.
Finally, on the question of the Osmotherly rules, I am glad that the matter will be dealt with one way or another. We would prefer it to be set out in the Bill, but otherwise in the memorandum of understanding, because the ISC frequently needs access to the papers of a previous Administration, for example, or has to deal with matters that are sub judice, and we cannot row backwards from that situation. Subject to those comments, we are very pleased with the progress the Bill has made thus far.
Caroline Lucas
Amendment 71 seeks to provide some form of recourse for people who have been defamed by the UK security services and to ensure that part of the Intelligence and Security Committee’s remit is to investigate such claims and, where necessary, ensure that they are corrected. I listened with interest to what the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) said about this not necessarily being the right forum. I am happy to be advised on that, but right now it feels that there is no appropriate forum. The situation of Shaker Aamer, for example, which I will set out in more detail shortly, demonstrates that. If the hon. Gentleman can enlighten me on how we can make existing forums work more effectively, for example in this case, I would be very interested to hear what he has to say.
The ability of the security services effectively to say what they like about anyone, often resulting in serious consequences for the individual concerned, is at present largely unchecked. As John Cooper QC said in a legal opinion on precisely that issue, the security services are “presently allowed to literally say what they will to achieve their own ends, whether or not those ends are legal, democratic or in accordance with the rule of law. In addition to this, those who indulge in these activities are completely unaccountable to the citizen, to the Government, and even to a quasi-regulator or body charged with their oversight, such as the ISC. What is more, the victims of such defamation are likely to be the most vulnerable individuals, most likely detained under the most restrictive of circumstances. In essence, they are prisoners defamed by their controllers and captors. That is neither right, nor acceptable.”
I want to give a real-life example to help illustrate why I believe that this is so important. British resident Shaker Aamer, whose wife and children are British citizens and live in south London, has been held in Guantanamo for more than 11 years, despite having been cleared for release by both the Bush and Obama Administrations. The Foreign Secretary has raised the case with the US on several occasions, and the Foreign Office has made it clear that
“The government remains committed to securing Mr Aamer’s release and return to the UK.”
Given that the US has cleared him for release, a complicated process including multiple federal agencies, and the UK Government have made it clear that they want him to come home, one cannot help asking why Mr Aamer remains detained in Guantanamo, never having been charged or tried for any crimes. The conclusion that his US lawyer has reached is that Britain’s intelligence agencies have been defaming Mr Aamer to the US, passing on false information and accusing him of extremism, and that is what is holding up his release.
Mr Aamer is being deprived of his liberty on the basis of lies being told about him that he is unable to challenge. He has therefore begun defamation action against the security services—action that could be pushed into a secret court under part 2 of the Bill, leaving him once again unable to confront his accusers or to challenge the evidence used by the Government against him. I would argue that, at the very least, it is important that a duty be placed on the Intelligence and Security Committee fully to investigate such claims. That would not be a solution in itself, but it could provide some small measure of recourse for those such as Mr Aamer who find themselves in the gravest of positions as a result of information passed behind their back.
I will be very happy to hear if there are other ways of addressing this problem, but right now the advice that I am receiving from some of the legal people involved in the case is that they are not aware of any measure that would do so.
Mr George Howarth
Perhaps some of my right hon. Friends will explain to the hon. Lady the powers that exist to deal with such cases, and deal with them shortly, one hopes. Does she think it would be right for a Committee of Parliament to act in a quasi-judicial or even wholly judicial role, which would be the effect of her amendment?
Caroline Lucas
I am not convinced that the Committee would be acting in a quasi-judicial role; I would share the right hon. Gentleman’s reservations were that to be so. I am honestly searching for a solution to the problem, and perhaps this is not the right one. However, I want to put on record the real concern that exists about the situation that Shaker Aamer finds himself in. If nothing else, I hope that if this is not the right route to take, Government Members will direct me towards the appropriate measures, because this case has been going on for very many years.
Dr Julian Lewis
I wish to be helpful to the hon. Lady, and I think that the Investigatory Powers Tribunal is the body that she has in mind. All these tribunals, including those for communications issues and for complaints such as this one, are headed up by senior judges. I think she would find that they are a much more appropriate route. However, it is obviously very interesting to hear what she has to say about these worrying cases.
Caroline Lucas
In the interests of time, I will leave the matter there and pursue it via other avenues. I am grateful for the opportunity to have aired this really important case.
Sir Menzies Campbell
I am entirely sympathetic to what the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) has said about that case. However, a statutory avenue is already available under the Regulation and Investigatory Powers Act 2000, which set up the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. Further to the intervention by the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth), a fellow member of the Committee, one might not be able to describe the proposed power that she wishes to provide as quasi-judicial, but it might possess a hybrid relationship in being both investigative and judicial, or in a position of seeking to create redress.
Apart from that, there is a fundamental statutory point. The hon. Lady’s proposed subsection (4A) refers to a situation in which
“a plausible claim has been made by or on behalf of an individual to the ISC that the Security Service…has disseminated any information to any recipient concerning any person that appears to be…materially false; and…harmful to the person defamed.”
The breadth of that goes far beyond even the jurisdiction of any court in the United Kingdom of which I am aware. Proposed subsection (4B) says that
“the ISC shall fully and expeditiously investigate the claim”—
so it does involve an investigative function—
“and, where the claim appears to be well founded, shall ensure that the misinformation is expeditiously corrected.”
But by what means? The ISC is not in a position to implement any such action. The amendment is not legally well-founded. In any event, as has been pointed out, its scope goes far beyond anything that the Committee’s staff and resources would permit. Moreover, there is no indication of how the powers would be exercised or how they could ever be implemented.
Sir Alan Beith
I want to consider briefly the restrictive wording of parts of clause 2 and the voluntary issue that has been raised by a number of Members.
I served on the Intelligence and Security Committee for about 11 years from its very beginning. It was a slow and painful task to get the first generation of heads of agencies and civil servants from Departments to understand the Committee’s need for a deep understanding of the relevant matters in order for us to do our job effectively. Subsequent generations of heads of agencies were ready to involve the Committee more closely and to bring up operational matters, whatever the statute said. It did not take me long to realise that it was not possible for members of the Committee to do their job properly unless they understood how various kinds of operations were conducted and the constraints and problems faced by the agencies. In particular, it was not possible to discharge an important responsibility without an understanding of operational matters.
One of the purposes of the ISC, where Members of both Houses of Parliament look closely at the work of agencies, is to give people on the outside—both in this place and in the community at large—a sense that Members who are there by democratic means are observing the agencies sufficiently closely to give confidence that their work is within the framework not only of the law, but of the ethics and principles by which we try to run our country. The background is that agencies were often accused of doing precisely the opposite in years gone by. Unless we can give people that confidence and say, “Yes, I have looked very closely at this matter and I do not think you need to be concerned about it,” the Committee will not be discharging properly one of its most important roles. We found that we had to look very closely at operational matters and that became easier as time went on.
The work sometimes involves what are, in effect, ongoing intelligence operations. In some fields, the work never stops and an operation to do with a particular recurrent problem does not have a simple end, so the provision in clause 2(3)(a)(i) is restrictive.
I fully understand how the Government have arrived at the word “voluntarily”. It would have been absurd if the wording had prevented the Committee from continuing to work closely with the agencies in the way it has done in recent years. That would have been ridiculous, so the word is there for a perfectly respectable reason. Indeed, things have been improved by the insistence that, if the Committee requests something, that does not by definition make it involuntary. However, I still think, as the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) said, that that is not the kind of language we want to see in the Bill. Nor does it give people outside the confidence that this Committee will be able to find out whether something is going wrong when it needs to do so, or that it can be relied on when it seeks to give assurance that all is reasonably well.
The task of getting this right is by no means over. The memorandum of understanding may be able to deal with those issues better, but, even then, words are being put on paper and when that happens, as we have discovered, simple, practical and sensible ways of doing things may appear to be precluded. Moreover, when there is friction or tension, it becomes easier for the head of an agency or, at least as often—indeed, perhaps more often—a Minister or civil servant to say, “This goes beyond the memorandum of understanding. It is outwith the terms of the statute.” We have heard such language and the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy), who is a previous Chairman of the Committee, will remember how rigid some people in the relevant Departments could be from time to time.
Ministers need to make it clear, as they have done to some extent in these discussions, that it is in the interests of the democratic accountability of these extremely important and valuable agencies that the public have confidence, not only in the agencies, but in that process of democratic accountability, circumscribed as it is by the need to protect the work of those agencies.
James Brokenshire
This has been a useful debate underlining the importance the House attaches to the scrutiny provided by the ISC and how it is being enhanced by the steps contemplated as a consequence of the Bill. The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), the Chairman of the Justice Committee, made the point about the scrutiny so far seen in the House and how we are seeking to strengthen it further.
I shall respond first to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and her amendment 71. As others have said, the essentially judicial function she seeks does not sit well within the ISC, which is intended to be a Committee of Parliament. It is not for the ISC to consider, much less determine, individual complaints about the intelligence services, especially given that there is already a body that can consider these matters and which we believe is well equipped to do so. Right hon. and hon. Members have highlighted the work of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which is the appropriate route through which complaints should be made.
The hon. Lady referred to the case of Shaker Aamer. I assure her that his case remains a high priority for the UK Government and we continue to make it clear to the US that we want him released and returned to the UK as a matter of priority. We continue to work with US counterparts to consider the implications for Mr Aamer’s case of the 2013 National Defence Authorisation Act. Discussions continue with senior officials within the US Administration. The Foreign Secretary raised Mr Aamer’s case numerous times with former Secretary of State Clinton and will continue to do so with Secretary of State Kerry. As the Foreign Secretary told Parliament last October, he and the Defence Secretary also made representations to the US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta last June.
Caroline Lucas
I appreciate the Minister’s rehearsing the Government’s commitment to getting Shaker Aamer back from Guantanamo. I have no doubt about that, but does he understand what the obstacle is? The US says he can come back here and the UK Government say we want him back. What, then, is the obstacle? Does he have any idea?
James Brokenshire
I can only say that decisions about the release of Mr Aamer rest entirely with the US Government. I underline that the British Government remain committed to engaging with the US with the aim of securing Mr Aamer’s release and return to the UK as soon as possible. To conclude my remarks on the hon. Lady’s amendment, let me say that we believe there is an appropriate mechanism by which she or others can bring complaints to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal.
On amendment 74 and pre-appointment hearings, I do not wish to go back over the lengthy debate we had in Committee on this issue. I can only restate several points I made then: pre-appointment hearings are a relatively new phenomenon in the UK; the Cabinet Office has published guidance on the process to be followed for such hearings; and at the moment the list of posts subject to those hearings relates to public bodies, such as the chair of Ofcom or the Social Security Advisory Committee. The pre-appointment process has never been used for the appointment of civil servants. The heads of the intelligence and security agencies are permanent secretary-level civil servants, so the recruitment process is expected to follow the process for the appointment of civil servants of such seniority. We judge that this continues to be the appropriate mechanism.
On the Osmotherly rules, I made the point in Committee that the powers to withhold information from the ISC have been used sparingly and that we expect them to continue to be used only in exceptional circumstances. The Osmotherly rules set out categories of information, including information on officials’ personal views, as distinct from the views of Ministers, on policy options; information that could be supplied only after carrying out substantial research or at excessive cost; information about matters that are sub judice; and the papers of a previous Administration. The provisions in the Bill are necessary to safeguard the long-standing conventions that are reflected in the Osmotherly rules. We judge that the provisions, although they have been used only sparingly, remain appropriate.
Mr Kenneth Clarke
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I commend the Bill in its present form to the House.
The first point to reflect on, in considering the Bill in its entirety, is the debt we owe to our security and intelligence services. Unfortunately, we face unprecedented threats at different times from various enemies, both at home and abroad. It is extremely important that we have highly efficient intelligence and security services to protect the lives of our citizens and the normal civilised business of the country. We have to support the intelligence services on which we rely so heavily.
Secondly, this country upholds the highest standards of human rights in this area of its activities, as in other areas. We all expect those who work in our intelligence and security services to have the same regard to the values that we are defending as everyone else does—that we do have regard to the rule of law. The British Government are, and, as far I am aware, always have been, firmly against the use of torture, firmly against unlawful and extraordinary rendition, and firmly against practices on which some of our allies take a more relaxed view. I would like to think that the British intelligence and security services are not only among the best in the world, but uphold much higher standards in the way they conduct themselves than is true of the vast majority of the nation states of the world.
The vast majority of Members agree that we are grateful to the security services, and that it is important that they are held as accountable as everyone else. We follow another principle that the Government, as far as possible, hold dear, which is that of transparency: avoiding unnecessary secrecy wherever possible, and being as open in our dealings with the public in every aspect of our public life. Plainly, that has to be modified to a certain extent to protect the absolutely essential secrecy that our security services need, and which the people who co-operate with them, the agents who help us and the various people we have to rely on throughout the world, need.
I believe that the part of the Bill that we will look back on with greatest pleasure is the considerable steps we are taking to give extra powers to the Intelligence and Security Committee. In ensuring that the security services are held accountable, accountability to Parliament is extremely important. I will not rehearse all the arguments, which have taken most of today, but the Committee is now to be truly a Committee of Parliament. The House of Commons will be able to elect the membership—on the nomination of the Prime Minister, but members will be appointed by parliamentary vote. The Prime Minister’s nomination is a necessary precaution in case some unknown feature of a Member of Parliament’s background might make him or her a less suitable member of the Committee than would otherwise be the case.
As we have seen over the years, the Intelligence and Security Committee is one of the most important Committees of the House. Its membership, not surprisingly, tends to comprise heavyweight individuals from all parts of the House of Commons, with a membership that is highly respected in all parts of the House for the work it tries to do. However, I will not repeat what my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department set out in the debate. We have examined in detail the various processes that we now have in hand to enable the Committee to require evidence to be given to it and to hold the security services thoroughly to account, in all the sensible circumstances that can be managed, while at the same time ensuring that no risk is posed to national safety and national security.
The most controversial part of the Bill is the one we debated on Monday, in which we seek to make the security and intelligence services more accountable to the judiciary and courts of this country, particularly as in the last few years a growing number of people have alleged before our courts malpractice against the security services and sought substantial damages for events in which they say our security services were complicit. Things are plainly unsatisfactory as they stand, and we have all quoted many distinguished members of the judiciary to illustrate that. Opponents persuade themselves that they are so against the principle of closed proceedings of any kind that they wish to keep the present law, which they regard as satisfactory.
I am afraid I am still at the stage where I do not see how on earth we can say that the present law is satisfactory. People bring claims and are prepared to give evidence, as they are perfectly entitled to, in support of them. The nature of the evidence that the security and intelligence services and the Government would wish to produce to defend some of those claims is of the kind that cannot possibly be given in open court. The courts have made it clear that sometimes there is indeed scope for closed proceedings, but that they cannot be held through an ordinary civil action unless Parliament has decided the circumstances in which these should be allowed.
We already have closed proceedings in this country in several areas—there are about 14 instances of different jurisdictions where we have closed proceedings, largely in the immigration field. It is of course less than perfect justice, because the only possible challenge to the evidence is from special advocates who have been security cleared, and they are not as free as they would be in an open court case to take full instructions from their clients. Everybody knows that, but in fact they have more weight as advocates than most people appreciate. Given the circumstances, most judges are prepared to listen to challenges, realising that they have to bear in mind that they need to be particularly scrupulous, because there are limitations in how far the evidence is being tested before them.
The best test is that special advocates win in closed sessions—I have been fond of citing one or two instances as these proceedings have gone along. The last case that the Government lost—that of Abu Qatada, which caused a tremendous public controversy and still is—was lost before a judge, Mr Justice Mitting, who does not have the reputation of being a melting-heart liberal. Abu Qatada won in closed proceedings in a British court, defeating my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and the Government in our attempts to remove him for a trial in Jordan. Obviously the judge was not satisfied that torture would not play a part in the proceedings if Abu Qatada was sent there. The idea that Ministers have the ability to present things to a judge in circumstances where the closed advocates have no hope is mistaken. What we will get is a judgment, whereas what we get at the moment is silence.
In the main, we have been attacked by people who say how much they deplore secrecy and silence, yet the effect of being granted a public interest immunity certificate, which is the only course open to Ministers wishing to withhold evidence that could damage national security, is total silence. The evidence cannot be used by the claimants, cannot be taken into account by the judge and is not available to the defence. As we all know, cases are being brought with increasing regularity in which the Government have no alternative but to offer no defence, because no evidence can be called, and then to start negotiating the amount money to be paid in compensation.
I have never given exact figures for the compensation involved—although some have appeared following interviews with me—because the claimants usually want to enter into confidentiality agreements on the settlement. However, there is no harm in telling the House that millions of pounds are being paid out to claimants whose cases have never been tested or challenged. I make no apology for repeating my suspicion—one that is held by most objective people—that there is a serious risk that some of the money is finding its way to very undesirable quarters, and probably to terrorist groups in the case of certain plaintiffs. I am not talking about all of them, and I will not say which of them this applies to—that was never decided by the courts—but some of those people will have links to organisations that will have some of that money on them. I do not think that the public understand why the Government cannot defend themselves. That gives rise to genuine disquiet among perfectly intelligent liberal members of the general public.
We have had a long, satisfactory debate, during which the Bill has been transformed in both Houses. We are still not in total agreement on the wording, but we agree on the principles. The judge will have the widest possible discretion to decide that he is going to hear evidence in closed proceedings only when it is relevant and has to be heard to decide the case, and when it would damage national security if it were given to the wider world. Furthermore, the just and effective administration of justice will have to be served by hearing it in private. I will not repeat all the arguments that were put on Monday.
The overall effect of the Bill will be to improve the reassurance that we can give to the public and to the world that we uphold the highest standards in this country, and that we seek to maintain them by holding accountable those who work on our behalf. I believe that the outcome is not only legally sound but an eminently sensible common-sense solution to the obvious practical problems that arise when we wish to combine the rule of law with the protection of national safety and security. I commend the Bill to the House.
Mr Speaker
Order. I feel sure that the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) will match the exemplary brevity of the Minister without Portfolio, and it is important that he should do so, because at least five or six right hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye and we must conclude the debate by 5 o’clock.
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
I am most grateful for your advice, Mr Speaker. I am sorry that the Minister without Portfolio did not give way to me earlier. He has again made the assertion that the Government are being forced to settle cases, but his assertion would have more appeal if they did not regularly settle cases before exhausting all their options and before applying for a strike-out. I do not think that his admonitions about people seeking confidentiality agreements to hide the amount of compensation that they were getting could apply to Mr Belhaj, for example. The Minister is to some extent peddling damaged goods again, and that is regrettable as he is one of the last defenders of human rights in his party. I thought he might have had a little more to say about article 6 and the common law right to a fair trial. I must get on, however; I am aware of the Speaker’s request.
I want to begin with thanks. This is not a long Bill but it is a difficult one, given the nature and complexity of its subject. It touches on two fundamental concepts: national security, and the fairness and openness of justice system, which we prize and for which this country is still regarded as a role model. In addition to the Front-Bench teams who have laboured hard—exemplified by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), and the Minister without Portfolio—we have had the benefit of the great expertise of some senior Back Benchers.
I mention in particular, although they are not here, the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) and the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). I mention, too, members of the Intelligence and Security Committee, several of whom are here, particularly the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy), who served and brought their experience to bear on that Committee. Then, of course, there is my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr Francis) and his colleagues on the Joint Committee on Human Rights, who have been forensic in their scrutiny of this Bill since it emerged as a Green Paper almost 18 months ago. We have had the advice of eminent lawyers too numerous to mention and all pro bono. I must, however, mention Tony Peto, who not only advised members of all parties but found time to co-author with the hon. Member for Chichester a book, “Neither Just nor Secure”, in time for the Committee stage. Copies, I am told, are still available.
There is substantial agreement on two parts of Bill. Part 1 improves the scrutiny of our intelligence services—something that has come a long way since they first emerged from the shadows in 1994. A point well made by ISC members on the Public Bill Committee was that there is a developing relationship between Parliament and the security services, which tries to balance the need for scrutiny with the effectiveness of the vital job those agencies do. The Bill takes that a step forward in enhancing accountability: it is too little and too slow for some, but it is moving in the right direction.
The clauses reforming the Norwich Pharmacal jurisdiction seek to re-assert the control principle and to protect the security interests of allied countries—not only in their interest but ours, since the success of our security services relies on close working relationships with their equivalents overseas. Thus far we agree, but how can that explain the definition of sensitive information in clause 15 as information relating to “an intelligence service” rather than to “a foreign intelligence service” as our amendment proposed? It looks like another attempt gratuitously to extend the protection given to secret information for reasons other than those given. It is a pity we did not have time to debate that matter further—perhaps even now, the Government will, of their own volition, look at that point.
That brings me to the contentious part of the Bill—that relating to closed material procedures—which regrettably leaves this House in a far worse condition than it was when it arrived. Not only have the key safeguards added to the Bill by the other place on the advice of the JCHR been removed, but new and alarming departures from the normal standards of civil justice have been put on the face of the Bill. This has been done as late and as obliquely as the Government could get away with. I hope their lordships will when the Bill returns to them later this month reimpose their necessary amendments and fillet the unwelcome additions.
There is not time to rehearse every attempt at mitigating the effect of secret courts that the Government have rejected, but in brief we have had 18 months of feigned U-turns, compromises and Pauline conversions from the Minister without Portfolio. In the end, they amounted to two important but not fundamental ameliorations. The door was opened to judicial discretion by accepting the Lords amendment on “may” instead of “must” at the entry to clause 6. Citizens will, after a series of wobbles and changes of heart, now have the same status as the Secretary of State to apply to enter a CMP. The two core changes sought by the Opposition in support of the other place have been firmly rejected: judicial balancing between the interests of national security and fair and open justice at the gateway to the CMP; and requiring the court to look at other more open, more tested and more equal ways of proceeding to trial before invoking the CMP—the so-called last resort.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Government were also unwilling to concede considering public interest immunity as a first option, judicial balancing of evidence once the CMP process was under way or to support a sensible renewal clause designed to give parliamentary scrutiny to this botched-together part of the Bill. These are all matters to which their lordships, including some of the finest legal brains in the country, will wish to address their minds. I hope and trust they will renew their attempt to make this part of the Bill work in the interests both of national security and open and equal justice. I hope—I am sure—they will not be deceived by the Government’s flimsy attempts to make purported concessions on these points.
The recent Government amendment 47, to ask the court to consider whether the Secretary of State has considered PII, is purely cosmetic. The hon. Member for Chichester described it as bath-time activity for the Minister without Portfolio—and it certainly comes with the customary large amount of soap. Similarly, clause 7, inserted in Committee, purports to challenge the CMP process continually and expressly on disclosure being completed. The court could do that of its own motion in any event, but it in no way mirrors the balancing act called for in our amendment 38, which was defeated late on Monday evening.
Have these purported concessions been presented to appease the Daily Mail, or—by way of winning the support of the members of the junior coalition party—the Liberal Democrat party conference? If so, they have done neither. The press, from left to right, remains hostile to this part of the Bill in its current form.
This weekend, the Liberal Democrats—when they are not reviewing their process for leadership selection—will vote again on a motion that states, first,
“Liberal Democrat parliamentarians to vote to delete Part II of the Justice and Security Bill”,
and, secondly,
“Party policy to remain that the Liberal Democrats will repeal Part II of the Justice and Security Act (if so enacted) as soon as we are in a position to do so.”
The hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) may have saved his skin by his votes on Monday, but 50 of his colleagues may find the air in Brighton less sweet. Even the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) may find his comment on Second Reading coming back to haunt him. He asked the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke)
“whether he understands that the detailed amendments made in the House of Lords have been regarded by many people as being entirely favourable and reasonable.”—[Official Report, 18 December 2012; Vol. 685, c. 713.]
Dr Huppert
The hon. Gentleman has again made references to matters connected with the Liberal Democrats in regard to which he was factually wrong, but I do not have time to correct them all. However, may I take him up on his point about our being “in a position to do so”? Let us say that after the next election there were some Labour involvement in the resulting Government. Would he then commit himself to repealing part 2, or is he in favour of it when it comes down to it?
Mr Slaughter
I certainly would not commit myself to repealing part 2, because it includes the Norwich Pharmacal jurisdiction, which we support.
Finally, let me deal with the new heresies that have been slipped into the Bill during its passage in the House of Commons. I have time only to raise the issues rather than exploring them; further comment must be a matter for the other place.
The first of those issues, which was raised by us in Committee but not dealt with satisfactorily by the Minister, relates to clause 6(4)(a), which currently sets as a condition precedent to the court’s ordering a CMP that
“a party to the proceedings…would be required to disclose sensitive material in the course of proceedings to another person (whether or not another party to the proceedings)”.
We fear that the provision will be used in part to prevent the use of confidentiality rings, allowing the citizen's own lawyer to be excluded from receiving information. It was that eventuality that we sought to prevent through our amendment 28, which was not reached on Monday but which would have added the words
“and such disclosure would be damaging to the interests of national security”.
Our second significant concern relates to Government amendment 46, which was tabled only last week and was introduced to the Bill on Monday. There has been no opportunity to debate the amendment, which adds to clause 6(7) the phrase
“or on such material that the applicant would be required to disclose'”.
That appears to allow an application for a CMP to be made on the basis of irrelevant material which is not the sensitive material that the party applying—usually the Secretary of State—fears having to disclose. It may therefore allow the court to take into consideration material that is merely embarrassing or damaging to international relations. The Government have excluded such material from consideration in the CMP, but it seems it may now be adduced to trigger the process.
If we are right about that, there are other ramifications. The gisting requirements—which, as the special advocates have pointed out in their latest submission, are already very weak in the Bill—ask the court to consider, not to require, a gist, and thus allow a case to be decided entirely on the basis of evidence that one party has had no right to challenge. In addition, a gist need only be made of material that is disclosable. That presents the possibility of a CMP being granted on the basis of non-disclosable material, and the court not even being asked to consider whether it is necessary to gist that material to the open lawyer or client.
This is not so much a bad Bill as a Bill with a bad heart. We will not be voting against Third Reading, because there is much in part 1 that we support, but we believe that even at this stage the clauses on CMPs can be improved—indeed, must be improved. We look to the other place once again to provide the necessary heart massage. We hope that the Justice and Security Act will secure an effective way of trying difficult cases with serious national security implications without jeopardising hard-won and much-prized principles of fair and open justice. We have never excluded the CMP option, but we believe that it is such an affront to the basic, open and fair principles of English common law that it must be confined to the tiny minority of cases in which proper judicial discretion and other tried and tested methods have been exhausted.
Sir Menzies Campbell
Part 1 of this Bill is a logical extension of a process that began approximately 20 years ago. The development of the relationship between the Intelligence and Security Committee and the services, based on respect but also on a clear understanding of their respective responsibilities, has been a substantial and important constitutional development, and nothing should take away from that.
The Minister without Portfolio described me as a heavyweight. It is a description I have been trying to avoid as I get older, for reasons he will readily understand, but there is no doubt that the matter we are discussing causes considerable controversy, and let me begin by saying I do not like part 2 of the Bill. Quite often we have to pass legislation that we do not like, however, because in our judgment it is necessary to do so, as the balance favours having the legislation. That is the principle on which I base my conclusion in this case, for which I will not be the darling of the Liberal Democrat conference in Brighton, not least because I am going back to my constituency—not to prepare for government, but to explain the consequences of the Government’s decision to close the Royal Air Force base there, which has been a source of great pride and has made an enormous contribution to the life of the community. What I will say and do is contrary to the expressed—and potential—views of the Liberal Democrat conference. I respect those views, but I think I am entitled to expect in return that my party colleagues will respect mine.
I base my views on this difficult matter on three influences: first, the fact that I have been a member of the ISC for some years; secondly, my experience as a Member of this House; and, thirdly, the fact that the law has been my trade since 1968 and I believe I know and understand it as well as any other Member of this House. I also believe that I have done as much as anyone to pursue the objectives of ensuring the protection of the citizen and the preservation of human rights.
The implication that those of us who support this legislation do so out of a slavish willingness to advance the interests of the United States has caused me some resentment, as has the suggestion that we are a cat’s-paw of the intelligence services. Not only are these claims insulting, but in my case they are palpably wrong. In recent years, for example, I have argued very strongly for an alteration in the extradition arrangements between our two countries, and 10 years ago almost to the day I and the then leader of my party were leading the opposition to the too-close association with George W. Bush and the United States in the unhappy venture into Iraq.
However, when senior officials in the current American Administration look us in the eye and tell us that their apprehension about the confidentiality of their sources is influencing the quality of the intelligence they are willing to share with the United Kingdom, should we ignore or dismiss that? If that position is then supported by American agencies themselves, should we ignore or dismiss it? When the UK’s agencies confirm under cross-examination their impression that the quality of shared intelligence with the United States has diminished, should we ignore or dismiss that? When the Americans say they are concerned about the risk to the lives of their agents or the revealing of techniques and procedures, should we ignore or dismiss that?
Do I like closed material proceedings? I do not. But do I think public interest immunity certificates are the answer? I most certainly do not. I have re-read chapter 13 of the Scott inquiry into arms to Iraq. It is heavyweight reading, but if any Members wish to become advocates for the value and validity of PII, I recommend they read it and find out the true implications.
If one wants to avoid embarrassment, a PII certificate is one of the most effective ways of doing so. If one wants to prevent a litigant from accessing evidence that might assist that person in establishing a case, PII is a very convenient way of doing so. One thing that has interested me more than anything else in this rather controversial debate has been the fact that many of the interested parties that now express confidence in public interest immunity certificates have previously been the first to criticise them.
The Bill has improved. Has it improved as much as I would prefer? Of course not, but how many times can any one of us put our hand on our heart and say that the piece of legislation for which we have voted is precisely and exactly as we would have wished? We are at a crossroads between principle and necessity, and we have to ask whether the balance that has now been struck is acceptable. That, essentially, is a question of individual judgement and it is that individual judgement that our constituents send us to this place to exercise every time we are faced with a dilemma of the kind the Bill obviously creates. Why do I say that? The balance struck is sufficient because of the developed and controlling role of the judiciary or the judge in any case and because of the palpable independence of the judiciary in these matters. We need only consider the Binyam Mohamed case, the observations of the Master of the Rolls and the extent to which the Government of the day were unable to escape the consequences of the action raised against them.
As is often the case, distinguished lawyers of sound judgment take different views of these matters. Sometimes, it seems to me that it is like a game of political contract bridge: “If you play your 700 lawyers and my good friend Baroness Kennedy, I will play my Ken Clarke and my Lord Woolf in an attempt to outbid you.” Such decisions are often as much a matter of instinct as logic.
Closed material proceedings have been described as Kafkaesque, but I doubt that those who say so have read Kafka. Others have said that they illustrate a form of Soviet-style justice, but a many litigants and accused persons in the Soviet system would be perfectly happy to swap their arrangements for those in this country, both north and south of the border. I would prefer not to have closed material proceedings, but I am satisfied that in this case the protections are such that they are justified.
Mr Leigh
I very much respect the views of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, but is he satisfied, as a Liberal, with the notion that from now on a litigant will not be allowed to look at the evidence in their case and cross-examine it on the basis that it will be made available to them? After all, is that not quite a serious procedure that is quite different from the defence withdrawing a piece of evidence or not adducing it at all?
Sir Menzies Campbell
It is a procedure that already exists in our law. If my hon. Friend is concerned about the universal application of the principle, that argument was lost some time ago.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
Yes, that argument was lost a long time ago, but is that a reason to pass the Bill into law when it makes the situation worse? Once again, it suggests that the view of Parliament is that somehow it is okay to go through a judicial process in which the defendant is not fully aware of the case against them and in which the public is totally unaware of the issue. It sets a dangerous precedent to have any avoidable secrecy in the judicial system.
Sir Menzies Campbell
Since the hon. Gentleman puts the point that way, let us turn it around and ask what he would do. Would he have elements of the conduct and the sources of the security services—sensitive, and perhaps at great risk to those who provide human intelligence—exposed in our courts? That seems to me the only possible alternative, or else, as has been suggested, we simply say there is a financial cost to be borne and we will settle any case that may have the consequence of causing such sensitive information to be revealed. That is not justice, as I understand it. That is the failure of the judicial system to reflect the reality of the proceedings which are brought before us.
Sir Menzies Campbell
But if the case raises the kind of issues that were raised in the case of Binyam Mohamed, what does my hon. Friend think the response would be if the state said, “We’re not producing any evidence at all”? What inference does he think people would draw if no defence was mounted? Of course the inference drawn would inevitably be one of guilt.
I finish by saying this: a lot has happened since the twin towers in New York were bombed and thousands of people died. Not all of it could be described as something of which we are proud, but the one thing that certainly happened then and which was reflected in many of the speeches that were made here on the special occasion when Parliament was summoned, and much of what has happened since then, has demonstrated that things were irretrievably and irrevocably changed as a result of that. We have only to look at the incidence of proceedings being taken in this country in relation to acts of terrorism or proposed acts of terrorism to realise the extent of that change. That is why, although I have no love for this legislation, I believe it is appropriate.
Mr Winnick
I have a great deal of respect for the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell). In the course of his remarks he said that we must all exercise our judgment, and like other right hon. and hon. Members I do so today. If I may say so without being misunderstood, the right hon. and learned Gentleman put a more reasoned case than did the Minister, but I am strongly opposed to the measure, which, however it is dressed up, is a denial of a system of justice that has been built up in this country over centuries. I have no doubt that the Bill will be carried today, and in due course it is likely to be carried into law, but it will be a poor day for Parliament when it is.
I speak as a non-lawyer. Whatever limited legal work I have done outside the House between seats, I am not qualified as a lawyer, but I understand and I probably understood from the very beginning that there are certain basic rights when a person is accused—the right of defendants and their counsel to know the full case and the evidence against them. As I said, this has been built up over centuries in this country and it is now being undermined. However limited the cases may be, some defendants will not be able to have that right. I consider that very unfortunate indeed.
Under closed material procedure, special advocates will be appointed instead of counsel appointed in the normal way. Defendants will not know the evidence against them, nor will their counsel or solicitors. It is interesting to note that even special advocates who have operated in other fields that have developed in the past few years have argued, as the Minister knows, that that is an unfair way of proceeding.
We are supposed to be satisfied that only a limited number of cases will be dealt with in such a way, but that does not satisfy me. If it is only one case, in my view that will be one too many. It is all very well the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife being satisfied—as I have said, I respect him and his integrity—but why have 700 lawyers, including a large number of QCs, indicated that they oppose it? Why has the Joint Committee on Human Rights made it clear that it is not satisfied with the outcome? Can they all simply be dismissed as some sort of civil liberties lobby that does not know what it is talking about?
We know that the basis for what has been brought before us is the cases of rendition, torture and the alleged complicity of British security personnel. Those cases have been debated on various occasions in the House of Commons, and I have taken part in those debates, but is it not important that we parliamentarians and, more importantly, the British public know whether or not the allegations are true? The right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife, in defending his position, said that if we do not follow what is proposed we will not get the necessary intelligence information from the United States. Are we really going to decide on that basis? Are we really going to decide that what has been built up over centuries, the right of defendants to fair proceedings and the right of their counsel to know what is going on at every stage, should be thrown overboard and into the dustbin because otherwise the United States might not provide us with intelligence information? And is it in their interests not to do so?
I in no way underestimate the acute terrorist danger facing this country. The atrocities of 7/7 came as no surprise to me, and I am sure that is the view of other Members who anticipated, as I did, that at some stage there would be a terrorist attack. Indeed, it might occur again—who knows? Yes, we are faced with an acute terrorist danger. I do not challenge that at all. They are demented, murderous psychopaths who want to bring death and destruction to our people. But if Parliament has a duty to defend our citizens, which indeed it does, I take the view that it has another duty and another obligation: to defend the rule of law and the traditional rights that have been built up in this country. That is why I cannot support the measure before us today. I believe that it is wrong and that it undermines so much of the British justice system that I think that we should be ashamed if it gets on to the statute book. Whatever I can do as one Member to show my opposition to the Bill, I will do it.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
The debate will finish no later than 5 o’clock, so can all Members please show time restraint in order to allow everyone who wishes to speak to do so.
Dr Julian Lewis
I will not go down the route that has so far been followed in this Third Reading debate, other than to observe that we must never forget that we are talking about civil cases, not criminal cases. They are not cases affecting people’s life and liberty; they are cases in which people, sometimes extremely unsavoury people with links to extremely dangerous organisations, are walking away with very large sums of public money. That is not a situation that can be allowed to continue. If the Opposition, in their heart, did not know that that was true, they would divide the House tonight, but they are not going to do so.
Instead, I will concentrate briefly on part 1, which strengthens the Intelligence and Security Committee. I believe that it was no coincidence that part 1 was added to the Bill, because there are two distinct and separate elements to the Bill. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) said, in what I must say was a masterly exposition of his position and, I think, that of most thoughtful people on this side of the argument about closed material proceedings, the consideration is not that there is an ideal answer, or even a satisfactory answer, but that all we can do is choose the least worst answer. To make that least worst answer to the problem more palatable, the strengthening of the ISC was added to the Bill.
I make no apology to the Minister for coming back to something that I, and others, raised quite strongly on Report: if the ISC is indeed to be strengthened, it must receive the resources it needs to carry out that strengthened and increased role. For those who did not hear me say it earlier, I remind the House that the ISC has only eight members of staff, and it has to pursue a number of inquiries and investigations every year, as well as its major annual report. That compares very unfavourably with the staff support for other Committees and inquiries, such as the 14 staff members for the detainee inquiry, which had only one specific issue to investigate, and the 12 staff members for the Committee on Standards in Public Life.
The ISC is currently funded to the tune of £750,000 a year. In the impact assessment published with the Bill, the Government cited a revised figure of £1.3 million that reflected their estimation of what the ISC would need to carry out the extra duties that are being placed on it in order to reassure the public that proper scrutiny is being carried out. The figure that is actually being offered is £850,000—an increase of just over one seventh on the existing budget. This would continue to leave the ISC worse off than all its international counterparts and worse off than the bodies that I listed. This is our last opportunity publicly to press the Government to commit to a substantive increase in resources. I hope that the Minister will confirm that the Government’s own published impact assessment will not be discarded when it is convenient to do so once this difficult Bill has been enacted.
I conclude—earlier than I would have liked, but I feel that I must—with a single observation. Everybody agrees that the contribution made to the evolution of this Bill by the Members of the upper House has been very considerable. Who can seriously maintain that that sort of expertise would be available to people on either side of the argument if we had undermined, restructured and, in effect, destroyed the upper House in the way that was so irresponsibly proposed? If this Bill ends up being better when it gets on to the statute book than it was when initially proposed, that will be in large measure due to the improvements made in another place. We therefore have reason to be grateful that the other place is available, and will remain so in the indefinite future, to assist us in the development of controversial and complex legislation such as this Bill.
Mr George Howarth
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), who brought his customary forensic skills to bear in his description of what has happened in relation to the Bill. I entirely accept his point about the resources that we will need to do the job properly.
I have been a member of the Committee since 2005. When we have had the opportunity to discuss oversight with parliamentarians from other parts of the world, they have always expressed envy for our system. I think that our system is now even more enviable. I am proud to be a member of the Committee and think that the changes will result in our being able, resources permitting, to do a better job than we have done so far.
On part 2, as the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) said in a customarily elegant and well-judged speech, in the best of worlds nobody would want to support closed material proceedings. He explained very well the particular circumstances in which many of us think they are necessary. I have been struck in particular by how the views of people such as David Anderson QC have changed. He started out by saying that they were not acceptable and that there was no place for them in our legal system. He then had the opportunity to inspect the files of the cases pending and, as a result, he ended up with the same conclusion—in fact, it was almost identical—as the right hon. and learned Gentleman, namely that there is no ideal solution, so we have to make a choice between bad and worse, which is, in effect, what we have done.
I echo what the hon. Member for New Forest East has said. I have sat through much of the debate on this Bill, although some of us were not allowed on the Bill Committee, so I did not have the opportunity to debate it there. Much of the tone and rhetoric of the debate on the Floor of the House on Report and Third Reading would have been entirely appropriate if we had been discussing criminal proceedings, but we are talking about civil proceedings. The problem that we have to come to terms with is that, because the Government are unable to defend themselves in civil proceedings—some of those involved may be of good character, while others may be of doubtful character—they end up spending millions of pounds in compensation that might not be paid in other cases, but certainly would in others.
In conclusion, my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) on the Front Bench talked earlier about his amendment—which I and other right hon. Friends opposed on Monday evening—to, in effect, adopt the Wiley test for fair and open proceedings. He has failed to convince me repeatedly about such a test when the alternative is closed material proceedings. That makes no sense to me whatsoever. The real alternative, as the Minister without Portfolio said in his opening speech, is public interest immunity orders, which would mean that nothing got in front of a court or a judge. That is the choice. This is a better Bill than it was when it came from the other place. If there is no Division, I will support the Bill through my non-vote.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. I think there are still three Members standing.
Dr Huppert
It is fascinating to follow Members’ comments on the internal dynamics of all parties, but I will not comment on them. I am not a fan of closed material proceedings, for reasons that have been expressed. I will not go through all the discussions we have had during the Bill’s previous stages.
The point has been well made that the measure does not apply to criminal cases, but there is a view that it does in some cases. We are still waiting for absolute clarity on whether it applies to cases of liberty and habeas corpus. I am sure that the Minister without Portfolio will be able to give us the latest update on that. The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), made it clear in Committee that the position has changed somewhat.
Even without that, there are lots of cases where this is already in our law and which I find even more alarming, because they affect people’s liberty much more. We heard on Monday from the hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) about a Special Immigration Appeals Commission case in his constituency. I remember talking to him about it two years ago, when his constituent was under detention during the period of the case, which was based on closed material proceedings, under legislation introduced by the previous Government. As I understand it, two years on the constituent is still being detained under the same legislation, because of evidence he has not had the chance to see. Whatever we think about a civil case, where money is involved, I hope that everyone here would say that a case involving two years of somebody’s life—curfews and the sort of internal exile that we saw with control orders and, to a lesser extent, terrorism prevention and investigation measures—is more serious. We should not allow ourselves to ignore that.
The Bill has been on a long journey and in that time it has got a lot better. Since the Green Paper, a huge number of changes have been made to what material would be excluded. There was the incredibly important switch from the language of public interest in keeping something quiet to the language of national security, which was definitely a step in the right direction. I do not think that anybody in the House wants to see silenced information that would just be embarrassing to the Government. I am sure that Governments would be quite capable of arguing that public interest includes their not being embarrassed too often.
It is also important that we have excluded inquests. It is right that we say to a family who want to know happened to a loved one that they will definitely know the truth and that they will not be told, “Something happened, but we can’t tell you.” It was a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth), but I was surprised that he, along with some of his Labour colleagues and some Conservative support, wished to bring inquests back within the scope of the Bill. I am very pleased that that amendment was not put. Had it been, I hope it would have been defeated thoroughly.
We saw further changes in the Lords. I pay great tribute to the Joint Committee on Human Rights for its sterling efforts. There are interesting questions about how the Government and the Joint Committee might work together more on some of these issues. We have had the slightly unusual case where the Joint Committee made some suggestions, the Government claimed to have satisfied them and the Joint Committee disagreed, but all this happened at a very slow pace. Perhaps there should be some way for the Committee, its Chair or the legal adviser to talk to the Government early on about draft amendments and to say, “Yes, this would achieve what we are trying to do, but with some wording differences”, as opposed to disagreeing fundamentally on whether it achieves the same thing.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
As a new member of the Joint Committee, and with the Chairman in his place, I would like to say that we would certainly like a routine system that gives us time to look at the Bill and to report, not just to the Government but to the House, so that we can have a proper debate that does not get curtailed or circumscribed because there is no time to do either those jobs properly.
Dr Huppert
I agree. That is now firmly on the record.
As a result of the Joint Committee’s work in the Lords, we saw the switch from “must” to “may”, which gave judicial discretion. That was one of the key changes made to the Bill. As a result of our efforts in the Commons, that led to full equality of arms and the reporting and review process, which the Minister agreed to take away and then came up with. It is definitely moving in the right direction, but there is further to go. I have mentioned the clarity on the subject of habeas corpus, but there is still the issue of a renewal process, be it annual renewal or five-yearly renewal, to give the House the chance to say, “Is it doing just what its proponents want it to do, or is it going further, as many of us feared it would?”
There have been several votes on the principle of the Bill, including one in the House of Lords, when my colleagues were joined by a total of two Labour peers and one teller and five others, and lost quite convincingly. It is a shame that amendment 1, tabled by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), was not taken on Monday, because it would have given the House the chance to have that vote. I pressed the same principle in Committee. I hope that the Lords will now step up and do more on this. Part 1 is a good step forward; part 2 is not. I hope that in the process of ping-pong we will be able to make further progress, because sadly it seems that it will pass through this House.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
There are still two Members left to speak. I call Jeremy Corbyn.
Jeremy Corbyn
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I think you are asking me to be very brief.
Jeremy Corbyn
Oh, you are asking me to do maths as well. I will be extremely brief.
I have no quarrel with the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) in respect of his sincerity, honesty or support for human rights or how he put his case today. I disagree with his final point, but I have no quarrel with the judgment he reached or why he reached it, because I have observed him and his general approach to human rights in the House for a long time. When I say that I do not agree with him, it is not out of anger; it is out of sorrow. I am sure that in the next five minutes he will change his mind and take a different approach, or perhaps he will not.
My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) put it well when he said that the House has to make decisions on important issues of human rights, liberty, the rule of law and the role of Parliament. Successively over the past 30 years, and even before that, we have enshrined in law on many occasions various forms of secrecy, denials of justice and denials of evidence, and people have been wrongly prosecuted as a result. There is a litany of miscarriages of justice that many Members of this House have been involved in over many years, most of which have centred on withholding evidence, secrecy or, in some cases, confessional evidence.
Since 2001, there has been a significant game change. Draconian anti-terror laws have been introduced in this country and many others. As a result, the most grotesque miscarriages of justice have taken place, including Guantanamo Bay and extraordinary rendition. All the legislation has been enshrined on the basis that we have to protect the security services and prevent what they do from seeing the light of day.
As I understand it, the Government’s position is that they cannot defend cases where there has been British involvement with other security services in the abuse of human rights when the individuals involved seek restitution in the British courts because it would mean identifying where their evidence came from. They have therefore paid out millions of pounds. Instead of admitting that we have been a party to human rights abuses, we are passing legislation to bring a new process into law.
I understand the point made by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), when he said that the Bill is not as bad as when it started its journey. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr Francis), the Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, has done a lot of good work to improve the Bill, as he has for many other pieces of legislation.
However, I feel that the Bill sends out the wrong message. We should have had a debate and a vote on the removal of part 2 on Monday. It is regrettable that we did not. I am opposed to the Bill because I do not like the secrecy or the protection of those who commit human rights abuses, whether they be in the pay of this state, another state or somebody else. The use of open courts and criminal law where appropriate is far more satisfactory. I therefore register my dissent against the Bill.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I am sorry to intervene late in my hon. Friend’s speech. Not only did we not vote on part 2; we did not even reach the provisions on Norwich Pharmacal. That means that a foreign power can now determine whether a British court can expose wrongdoings that take place under the auspices of that foreign power.
Jeremy Corbyn
My hon. Friend makes a strong point and it is well put. The relationship with other security services appears to take precedence over rights, independence and justice in this country.
For the reasons I have given and for many others that would take up too much time, I have grave concerns about the Bill. We have a duty as parliamentarians to defend human rights and liberty, and not to cover up injustice and wrongdoing, which this Bill could end up doing.
Mr Leigh
I want to have a conversation with my good friend, my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis). We all know that the Bill is about civil cases and not criminal cases, but as he well knows, because he has been a litigant, civil cases are very important and can affect a person’s whole life. They should therefore be treated with great seriousness.
We should not approach debates where human rights are involved by saying that the litigants belong to a class of people whom we find reprehensible. It may be that they are reprehensible, but that argument is often used about minorities. It is used at the moment about Islamists and it would have been used about the IRA in the 20th century, the civilian German nationals who were interned in 1940, the Fenians in the 19th century, the French earlier than that, the Jesuits in the 17th century, the Chartists and John Wilkes. So let us not get into the mindset of, “These are unpleasant people.” They also have a right to justice.
We should sometimes imagine how we would feel if we were the litigant. Let us suppose that we felt that something terrible had happened and our rights had been infringed in some way. How would we like a procedure whereby we went to court and halfway through the defence suddenly said, “This is all very secret and we cannot share it with you” and the judge said, “Okay, I’ll adjourn that and listen to the evidence on your behalf Member for New Forest East. You can trust me. I am appointed by the state. Or perhaps we can get some barrister appointed by the state and he can hear it”?
Let us then suppose that a few hours or days later the judge says, “You haven’t heard this evidence against you, but I think your case doesn’t stand up.” What happens when he sums up at the end of the case, as of course in public he cannot adduce all this secret evidence? How would hon. Members feel if they were the litigant? Would they feel that they had received justice? What does it say for our worldwide reputation if serious allegations about torture and so on are made and a large part of the case—and the reason why the litigant did not win his case—is determined on the basis of secret evidence?
We are then told that we are putting our security services at risk. That is nonsense, because the security services are like any other defendant, in that they can choose what evidence to submit to defend themselves. Is it really beyond the wit of man to defend these cases satisfactorily, for the most part? A question of the identity of agents may arise, but nobody is suggesting that the agent has to be brought before the court of law, or to have himself or his practices identified. Surely there are ways in which the case can be defended a lot of the time. I leave that point with my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East. I know he takes the rights of litigants and human rights seriously, and we are taking a serious step today—
Mr Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr Cox
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is a rule of law that if the Government are not able to defend an action and the evidence they are not able to put into court goes to the heart of the case, thus making the case unfair, they have the right to apply to strike the case out? If a case is untriable, the Government are able to strike the case out.
Mr Leigh
Yes, my hon. and learned Friend is an experienced leading counsel. I would have thought that there are various ways in which this problem could be resolved. The sky will not fall in. Our security services are not going to be put at risk. But there is a principle of natural justice and I think that we should proclaim it.
Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
Business without Debate
partnerships (prosecution) (Scotland) Bill [lords] (constitution of general committees)
Child Support Agency
(11 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Pamela Nash (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab)
I am very pleased to secure the debate, and to have the opportunity to exchange views with the Minister on the problems still being faced by parents assessed by the Child Support Agency under the 1993 scheme. I will concentrate on how this has severely affected one of my constituents, about whose case I have already been in correspondence with the Minister and the Department. It may seem odd to request a debate at the moment, when the Government have recently launched the most recent incarnation of the Child Support Agency. However, I would like to stress from the outset that I do not believe my constituent’s experience is an isolated one, and wish to take this chance to explore what might be a larger, underlying problem.
It is in the mood of cross-party co-operation that I wish to conduct the debate, as it would not be fair or helpful to blame any one party or Government for the numerous IT policy failings that have occurred in the administration of the Child Support Agency, from its inception to the present day, under different Governments. The contentious issue of ensuring that parents support their children after the breakdown of a relationship has undergone repeated, technical and bureaucratic tinkering by successive Governments.
When established in 1993, the CSA was originally designed simply to collect and enforce the child maintenance payments of non-resident parents on a formulaic basis. Government intervention was necessary following a long line of failures by the courts to establish a fair and consistent process of addressing the situation. However, the system created out of the Child Support Act 1991 was a product of the previous recession. As a result, it has been widely accused of being driven with the aim of saving the Government money, rather than collecting it for the children to whom it was owed. I remember only too well CSA letters dropping through my own letterbox as a child, and I can tell the Minister that the content of those letters pleased neither my mum nor my dad. Despite repeated attempts to fix the problems of the CSA, I find it unacceptable that there are still people being assessed under the same system that could not help my own family more than 20 years ago.
My constituent, Gordon Russell, was first assessed by the CSA in April 2002, and he has paid what the CSA assessed he was due to pay up until very recently. Because of the date of his original assessment, his payments were assessed under the 1993 scheme. This week the 2003 scheme is 10 years old, and yet Mr Russell has never been allowed to change over to it. He and I have calculated that, had he been reassessed under the 2003 scheme when he expected to be in 2004, he would have paid more than £23,000 less in child maintenance than he has paid as a result of being assessed under the 1993 scheme.
I want to demonstrate how the systemic failures of both the 1993 scheme and the revised 2003 scheme have impacted on Mr Russell, and possibly many others. It is the Government’s responsibility to ensure that policies are, and are seen to be, equitable—that is, that two people in almost identical situations should never find themselves in very different financial positions solely as a result of Government policy. However, by running the 1993 scheme concurrently with the 2003 scheme, that is precisely what has happened to Mr Russell, who is expected to pay almost double the amount paid by others in exactly the same financial and personal situation who were assessed post-March 2003.
Mr Russell contacted my office early in my parliamentary career. He is a non-resident parent of two children. Initially, following his separation from his wife in 2000, they agreed a sum for maintenance between themselves. They arrived at it after he contacted the Child Support Agency for advice on how to proceed. He says he was told that the system was very complex and was about to be amended. With that in mind, Mr Russell and his ex-wife used the 1993 scheme as a calculator, but at that point the CSA was not directly involved in the assessment or the administration of the payments. In 2002, for various reasons, that voluntary agreement broke down and the CSA was contacted by Mr Russell’s ex-wife. At that point a new CSA case was opened and an assessment made under the 1993 scheme of the time. The resulting calculation was a monthly payment by Mr Russell of just under £585. Again, the CSA was not involved in the administration of the payments, which I understand Mr Russell made on a voluntary basis to his ex-wife.
In spring 2003, Mr Russell received a letter from Doug Smith, the chief executive of the Child Support Agency, informing him of the new assessment scheme—I expect it was sent to many people in his position. The letter stated:
“The introduction of the new scheme will be a complex task, which must be planned and handled very carefully. When the Government is sure that the changes are working well for new applications, I will write to you again. I will then explain when your child support maintenance will change and what this means for you.”
It is clear that Mr Russell and the others who received these letters were continually reassured by the CSA that their cases would eventually be transferred to the new scheme, but that never transpired. The reasons given for the failure of the administration of the 1993 scheme centred on an over-complicated calculations process, an inadequate enforcement procedure and multiple IT failures. The 2003 scheme was sadly also plagued by IT problems. I understand that one issue for the new system was that cases from the old scheme could not be transferred to the new scheme’s simpler assessment process. That resulted in the CSA being left to administer two different systems concurrently, in a twin-track process. When Doug Smith departed the CSA, not long after he wrote that letter, he declared:
“I and the senior management team have done a good job over the last year to mask the worst impact of this IT system from the people who really count in this, who are our clients.”
Lord Kirkwood, then Chair of this House’s Select Committee on Work and Pensions, disagreed, saying of the CSA’s problems:
“This is not just about computers. It is a systemic, chronic failure of management right across the totality of the agency.”
For eight years Mr Russell paid the amount agreed with the CSA under the 1993 scheme. His expectation that he would be transferred to the new scheme was never met. In 2012, Mr Russell’s daughter celebrated her 19th birthday, which under the CSA’s rules meant that his maintenance payment for his children needed to be recalculated. He was told at that point that his monthly payment would be £511 for only one child. He challenged that figure, as it was only £74 less than he was paying for two children. As a result, a new assessment was made, still under the 1993 scheme, which concluded that he was in fact due to pay £618 a month—more than he was previously paying for both children. At that point Mr Russell decided he had to take a stand on this inequity, as he felt—indeed, he has been advised—that he should be on the 2003 scheme, under which he would be paying almost half that amount. In fact, he could no longer afford to pay that much money and felt that he should not have to. At that point he took the decision to pay the sum of £350 a month, which was what he calculated he would be paying if he had been assessed under the 2003 scheme. As a result, Mr Russell started to accrue arrears, and only two weeks ago, his wages were arrested.
For the past few months, I have been acting in support of Mr Russell’s case, the essence of which is that there is a gross inequity between his position and that of someone in identical circumstances who just happened to be introduced into the CSA scheme a few months after he was. To be clear, a non-resident parent like Mr Russell with children of the same age living with a parent with an identical financial situation to that of Mr Russell’s ex-wife, and with the same salary and financial commitments as Mr Russell, could pay much less child maintenance if they had been assessed post-March 2003.
I do not see how the Minister or anyone else can argue that that is a fair system. It is unfair to the non-resident parent who pays double the amount, and it is unfair to the children and parents who receive less under the same scheme. I would appreciate hearing from the Minister how many non-resident parents are still paying maintenance calculated under the 1993 scheme, and how many of those parents are paying more than they would be paying if they had been assessed under the 2003 scheme.
The Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008 made provision for a new system of child support to replace both the existing systems and to end the twin-track approach. Subsequently, it was decided that cases would not be transferred after all from the pre-2003 caseload to the post-2003 system as planned. Instead, all cases would eventually move over to the new system, once it was up and running. That sounds fair, but unfortunately there appears to be a nine-year gap between when the decision was first taken under the previous Government and its being implemented by this Government, and 2017 is the date when all cases are planned to have been moved over. That means that cases such as that of my constituent will have to continue under the current arrangements unless there is some other reason to convert the case. That would normally apply if a parent on the pre-2003 system made a new application to the CSA in relation to a second child, in what is known as a linked case.
My understanding is that it is impossible to change from the 1993 scheme to the 2003 scheme, or indeed to the new scheme, unless the paying parent has another child or the receiving parent has another child with another non-resident parent who they are claiming maintenance from. I would appreciate clarification from the Minister on whether that is correct. I see him nodding. In that case, I want to ask him why that is the case. The CSA’s own documentation says that that is the case so that all children in linked cases are assessed under the same scheme. I presume that that is to make it fairer for all concerned. I would argue that, to ensure the system is fair, surely all cases in the UK should be assessed under exactly the same scheme.
Reassessment is made regularly in a whole range of changes of circumstances, including parents getting married or moving jobs. I am still not clear about the obstacle to reassessing a person’s case on a different scheme when many changes of circumstances result in a recalculation anyway. I cannot help but guess that cost might be a factor. I would appreciate it if the Minister could provide an estimate of the administrative cost of moving an individual from the 1993 scheme to the 2003 scheme.
In terms of the differences between the two schemes, I find it unacceptable that, in the case of Mr Russell, I have recently received correspondence from CSA officials and from the Minister indicating that, in the view of the Government, it is simply a matter of moving between two equal but different systems. For example, the Minister stated in a letter to me that:
“For every parent who believes they will gain under the 2003 scheme, there is a parent who may lose out. While in most 1993 scheme cases one of the two parents would prefer to move onto the 2003 scheme for financial reasons it would not be fair or practical to transfer a case for this reason.”
That argument was reiterated by Andrew Jackson, a CSA senior client service manager, in a letter to me stating that
“for every parent who may believe they will gain under the new rules, there is a parent who may lose out.”
Surely what they should be arguing is that all parents, and all children for that matter, should be treated equally.
The 1993 scheme was deemed unfit, and a new scheme was therefore put in place. That was a replacement improved scheme, and it was never designed to be run long term alongside the previous scheme. By definition, as a replacement scheme it was introduced as it was thought to be fairer. I find the Government’s argument somewhat bizarre—namely, that for every loser as a result of the two-track approach to CSA there is a corresponding winner—as if someone gaining from an unfair system somehow compensates those who lose out. In my opinion, this argument about swings and roundabouts to support an indefensible two-track system is not worthy of the Department or the Minister.
If the IT problems of the CSA did not exist, would they continue to run two systems on the basis that, on average, one person’s loss is another person’s gain? Of course not. If the administrative, managerial and IT problems did not exist at the CSA, we would have had a single system many years ago. Yes, within such a system, there could be some winners and losers, but the important point would be that everyone would be assessed under the same rules. I appreciate that that is what the new system coming into play is planning to do but, as I said earlier, people will have to wait a long time before they go on to it, which is not good enough.
The most recent correspondence I received from the CSA about this case was from a complaints senior review manager and it is littered with serious errors about the basic facts of the case, including the accusation that Mr Russell has been paying only £350 a month since April 2002, when in fact he paid the full assessed amount up to June 2012. Since then, he has chosen to pay what he would pay if assessed under the 2003 scheme. I appreciate that this is a small and specific example of a mistake, but how can my constituent—or, for that matter, anyone—have faith in the CSA’s ability to run such an important system when it gets simple facts wrong in respect of a serious complaint by a Member of Parliament leading to months of correspondence between myself and the organisation?
In conclusion, the system was changed in 2003 because the previous one was not working—it was not fit for purpose and it was unfair. The figures I have cited this evening are not just figures on a balance sheet, and cannot be put down simply to bad luck if a person was assessed under the 1993 scheme. Successive Governments have had a decade to fix this, and lives have been ruined in the meantime. I hope that the Minister is able to answer some of the points I have raised, particularly about how many people are still paying maintenance assessed under the 1993 scheme. Why exactly have all those people never been switched over to the 2003 scheme? What are the Government going to do to stop this situation continuing and to compensate those who have suffered as a result? How long will it be before those assessed before March 2003 are moved on to the latest scheme? If the 1993 scheme was found to be unfair, why did the Government continue to use it for another 10 years?
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Pamela Nash) on securing this debate and on the assiduity with which she has represented her constituent. I have looked into the individual case and corresponded with her a number of times about it. I will frame my remarks in a more general way, however, so as not to disclose any further personal information about her constituent, save to say that if the Child Support Agency has sent a recent letter containing factual errors, I hope she will send me a copy as I would be happy to look further into that specific issue.
The hon. Lady raised an important point about the fact that there are still 261,000 cases of people being assessed under the 1993 rules. Perfectly reasonably, she said that she did not want to approach the debate in a partisan manner, and neither do I. I will simply observe, chronologically as it were, that the 2003 system came in. I shall say more about the reasons for that, but it was not because the 1993 system was felt to be fundamentally unfair or that the figures the system produced were somehow wrong. Rather, it was about the massive bureaucracy and complexity of assessing anybody, which meant vast amounts of time were required and vast amounts of evidence had to be gathered. That is why the decision was taken by the previous Government to streamline all that—not because the answers of the 1993 system were inherently wrong or worse than under the 2003 system, but because of the awful amount of time and effort involved. It was fundamentally a streamlining process.
The original intention was, as the hon. Lady said, to migrate people across, and for several years the previous Government sought to do that in good faith. That is why letters of the sort she mentioned from Doug Smith were sent. Those letters were subject to the caveat that when the Government were convinced things were in order, those people would be moved across—but they never were. In fact, it was the independent Henshaw report that finally put the nail in coffin of this idea back in 2006. So well into the period of the last Government, it was decided that it was simply not feasible to bulk transfer people across. As the hon. Lady will have gathered—now there are more than a quarter of a million of cases; back then, there were far more—the IT issues, the compatibility of the data and the whole difficulty involved in moving things across meant that bulk transfer and bulk case closure were simply not an option.
The hon. Lady asked why, if a single constituent had calculated that he would pay less under the 2003 system, we could not just transfer that one person. Within the total of 261,000, there will be an awful lot of people who are potentially in that position. I do not know how many precisely, because we have not made 261,000 calculations; if we had, we could probably transfer all the people concerned. However, it is clear that there will be a proportion of people of whom that is true, and a proportion of whom the opposite is true.
I was pleased when the hon. Lady rightly said that what matters is the well-being of the children. A unilateral case-by-case closure is currently against the law, but if we changed the law to enable all the people who did not fancy their ’93 assessment because they thought it was bigger than the 2003 assessment simply to transfer to the latter, tens of thousands of children—perhaps hundreds of thousands—would receive less child maintenance.
The position would be asymmetrical, because parents with care who calculated that they were receiving more under the old system would presumably not have a right of veto. All the non-resident parents who were paying more under the old system than they would under the new one would be transferred, although there would be a massive take-up problem: people would be asking us to do calculations and all the rest of it. If people opted to be transferred in tens of thousands of cases, tens of thousands of children would receive less money and no one would receive more, because no one would move in the other direction.
I hope the hon. Lady recognises that that would create a different kind of unfairness. How is it fair for someone who would pay less under the new system to be able to move to that system, while someone else—a mother, for example—who would receive a larger amount under the new system because the maintenance would be higher, as it will be in some cases, cannot do the same? That person will then persuade her Member of Parliament to hold an Adjournment debate and say, “It’s not fair. My ex-husband could transfer because he wanted to pay less, and I should like to be in the system in which I receive more. Why can he do what he wants and I cannot?”
Pamela Nash
I would argue that if non-resident parents are to be allowed to ask to be transferred, resident parents should have the same right.
Will the Minister clarify his position on cases in which there is such a large discrepancy between the amounts being paid under the two schemes? How can both schemes be seen to be fair when according to one assessment my constituent should be paying £350 a month and according to the other he should be paying nearly £600 a month?
Steve Webb
The aim of the ’93 system was to produce a tailored figure, and it took account of factors such as housing and travel costs. I believe that in some cases nearly 100 items of data were required to calculate the assessment. The incomes of the new partner and the parent with care had to be assessed, for instance. There are different answers to different questions. If those doing the calculations take the view that all the complexities of people’s circumstances should be taken into account, they will come up with one number; if they take the view that what is wanted is a rough and ready, quick calculation—15%, 20%, 25%; now let us get on with our lives—they will come up with a different number. Is one right? Is the other one right? Who is to say?
It could be argued that a comprehensive system is fairer because it is tailored to individual cases, but the calculation takes for ever. The last Government took the view that we were spending all our time doing complicated sums instead of getting child maintenance to people. The change was not based on the view that the 1993 figures were wrong—that they were inherently unfair to one party or another.
The hon. Lady asked about the process of migration. That is obviously important to her constituent, and I should probably put something on record now, because we have not said a great deal about it so far. The new system is intended to turn things around. That may be more difficult in the case of those who have been in the system for a decade or more, but, in general, we are trying to make sorting things out the default.
For many years the couple to whom the hon. Lady referred seem to have talked to each other and resolved matters. We know that children do better when mum and dad sort things out between themselves, and our goal is to make the child maintenance service a last resort. We are investing resources in help and support for separated families—in web applications, advice services and so on—to help people to sort things out for themselves, and if they contact us, we will signpost them and advise them on how they can do that. Clearly, however, some will still come to us, and about 1 million cases remain in the system, so we will have a migration process. Let me explain how that will work.
Pre-Christmas, in December, we started the process for new cases where there were four or more children. It is a very slow pathfinder system trying to learn from the ’93 and ’03 failures. Those cases will go straight into the new system and later this year, when we are convinced that it is working—it is going well so far—we will bring in the two-child-and-above new cases, and later still in the year all new cases. Once we are convinced all of that is working, we will begin the process of migration.
When we close cases under the existing two systems and bring them into the new system, we will encourage parents to reach family-based arrangements. Cases will be closed over a three-year period from next year, and where maintenance has been hard-won—where a non-resident parent has tried quite hard not to pay but we have got payment—we are thinking very carefully about how we can manage the case closure and migration process to make sure we do not disrupt the maintenance that is flowing. We are thinking very carefully about the sequencing of the way we do that.
We will introduce charges for the use of the statutory scheme, particularly on the non-resident parent. Again, the idea is to encourage both parties to reach a family-based arrangement, rather than to use the statutory system. Both parents can avoid collection fees entirely by paying directly using Direct Pay. Therefore, in the vast majority of cases we will give the paying parent the opportunity to pay the receiving parent directly. This Direct Pay option will give parents access to the statutory service in a way that can help rebuild trust between them.
We want to avoid the mistakes of the past. We acknowledge that some parents are better off under the ’93 scheme and some are better off under the ’03 scheme, but I stress for the record that these are statutory assessments, so people cannot say, “I don’t think the law as it stands is fair, so I will decide what I will pay.” These are legal liabilities, so the amounts are owed; it is not a matter of choice, I am afraid. I appreciate the point that some people, on both sides in many cases, will feel the sum is unfair. That is why if somebody does not pay what they are legally required to pay, arrears build up, and that will remain the case.
The previous Administration originally planned to move all 1993 scheme cases to the 2003 scheme, but it was simply not possible clerically to move 250,000 or so cases one at a time. We want to focus our energies on getting the new scheme up and running and migrating everyone to it—except where we can secure family-based arrangements—rather than put a lot of effort into moving people from the previous-but-one scheme into the previous scheme.
We are trying to ensure what happened in the past does not happen again. We are using tried-and-tested—standardised—software, as one of the problems with the ’93 system was that it was bespoke and unlike anything anyone else was using. We are also introducing the 2012 scheme gradually through a pathfinder approach, so that any issues can be picked up at an early stage, before we have a large case load.
The 2012 scheme, as I mentioned, is now open and progress so far has been good. We will gradually move people across and we have been consulting on the exact sequencing. I cannot give the hon. Lady a date for when her constituent’s case will be moved across, but our idea is to contact people six months ahead of the point at which their case would be due to be closed. We will encourage them to reach a family-based arrangement where possible and will support them in doing that. If that is not possible, six months afterwards the case can be reopened under the 2012 system, which is designed to be simpler and contains charges to encourage people to come to their own arrangements.
Another point that I think is relevant to her constituent’s case is that the 2012 scheme uses more up-to-date income information. One problem with cases on the ’93 system is that they are often stuck in the system untouched, so the maintenance assessments get very out of date, and they can be based on very old income data. I do not know whether that is the case with her constituent, but if someone asks for a reassessment and finds that their liability has gone up, that is often because the previous assessment was based on very old wage data.
The beauty of the new system is that it will use most recent tax return data from HMRC. Rather than our having to go to a non-resident parent, ask for wage slips, wait for them to come back, process them and so on without reassessing the assessment, those data will feed through automatically to us. Once a year on the anniversary we will revisit the assessment and update it with the latest income information so people will not have the rude shock of a sudden hike or drop in their liability, which will be based on the latest income information.
The hon. Lady is absolutely right that there is a set of issues for the people on the ’93 system who are paying more than those on the ’03 system. Equally, a set of parents with care would love to be on the ’03 system but are stuck on the ’93 system. It is important to realise that and perhaps we have not communicated it in correspondence as clearly as we might. We are not saying that because the computers cannot do it there is no issue of fairness, but there are multiple issues of fairness.
What we mean by “for every one, there is another” is that for every parent with care who would receive more under the new system, there is a non-resident parent who would pay less under it. Simply allowing case-by-case migration, quite aside from being unlawful, would create a different set of injustices. That is my conclusion: we want to get as quickly as we can to a new streamlined system that is fair to all and in which we do not have either of the legacy systems while learning the lessons from the past. As the hon. Lady rightly said, the process has not worked as well in the past as it should have done and we want to get to the new system as quickly as we can.
Question put and agreed to.
Ministerial Correction
(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Minor Consequential Improvements
(11 years, 2 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)
The Energy Saving Trust research found that consequential improvements, even with green deal finance in place, would put off 38% of households from going ahead with building work on their property that they were otherwise planning (“Energy Saving Trust, Exploratory Research into Building Regulations in relation to the Green Deal”, page 37).
[Official Report, 13 December 2012, Vol. 555, c. 42-3WS.]
Letter of correction from Eric Pickles:
An error has been identified in a paragraph in the Written Ministerial Statement on Minor Consequential Improvements on 13 December 2012. The error relates to a citation in the Statement.
The correct paragraph should have read:
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)
The Energy Saving Trust research found that consequential improvements, even with green deal finance in place, would put off 38% of small and medium firms and 34% of households from going ahead with building work on their property that they were otherwise planning (“Energy Saving Trust, Exploratory Research into Building Regulations in relation to the Green Deal”, pages 37 and 26).
Petition
Extension of the Tyne and Wear Metro to Washington
Westminster Hall
(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Scottish Referendum (Trident)
(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Ian Davidson (Glasgow South West) (Lab/Co-op)
This debate is about the consequences of separation. Independence would mean the separation of the United Kingdom armed forces into a Scottish section and a United Kingdom section. The Select Committee on Scottish Affairs therefore felt that it was important that we thoroughly explored what the consequences of separation would be for the people of Scotland.
As Members will no doubt be aware, we have been conducting a number of inquiries, partly about procedure but now mainly on issues of substance. It is our view that the people of Scotland must have put in front of them the full information about the consequences of separation. I am therefore particularly grateful for this debate, because Trident is obviously one of the most important single issues that will play a part in the dialogue after separation, should it happen.
The theme of our approach is taken from the words of Blair Jenkins, leader of the Yes Scotland campaign, who said in a Committee hearing:
“I think that in any referendum the onus is on the side of the campaign that is proposing a change to make the case for change. I have always accepted in this referendum that there is a fair onus, if you like, on the yes campaign to make the case for change.”
The Committee agrees. We believe that those arguing for separation must make the case for change by putting all the facts before the people of Scotland.
Sandra Osborne (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Lab)
I thoroughly agree with what my hon. Friend is saying, but does he not agree that it is extraordinarily complacent of the Ministry of Defence not to even consider the issue or be prepared to discuss it at all?
Mr Davidson
The Committee has made it clear that we believe that both sides in this debate—the Government and the various Ministries and those arguing for separation—should indicate much more openly than they have been willing to until now exactly how they intend to respond to various initiatives. In this case, having examined the matter in our report, we believe that the initiative now passes to those arguing for separation.
Our report is entitled “Days or decades?” because we believe that nuclear Trident could effectively be terminated in either days or decades. The onus now lies on the Scottish National party to clarify which it prefers. We had a meeting with shop stewards from Coulport and Faslane this morning; Martin McCurley, Jim Conroy and Richie Calder are all here in the Public Gallery. I name them so that their management will know that they have actually turned up here.
Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)
Order. The hon. Member should not be doing that, as he well knows.
Mr Davidson
Neither I should. The shop stewards said to us this morning that they have 50 years of security from the United Kingdom for those employed at Faslane and Coulport. They outlined to us that they understand that they might get answers from those seeking separation in November, after the publication of a White Paper, or maybe earlier, but they have not been promised any clear, categorical assurances before that time.
Lindsay Roy (Glenrothes) (Lab)
Is it not the case that it is about the security not just of existing jobs but of additional jobs over the next few years, as the new submarines are based there?
Mr Davidson
Indeed. That is a very valuable point. At the moment, 6,700 jobs are based at Faslane and Coulport. Under the existing United Kingdom Government proposals, which I understand are supported by all parties, that number would rise to 8,200 in the fairly near future. We have the opportunity to balance 50 years of security of employment and job growth with the United Kingdom on one hand and the great unknown of separation on the other.
Mr Iain McKenzie (Inverclyde) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend share my concern about the devastating impact that the loss of those jobs would have on the communities from which employees come, such as Helensburgh, Clydebank and Inverclyde?
Mr Davidson
Indeed. Some 6,700 jobs would be lost. To be fair, many are naval jobs in uniform. Presumably many of those people would be relocated elsewhere, and therefore would not be directly made redundant, but the other jobs would obviously be lost if Faslane and Coulport were closed, as would all the support jobs in the community. It has been estimated that up to 11,000 jobs could be lost. The information that I have seen makes that figure higher; it suggests a multiplier of roughly 2.5 plus the additional jobs, or potentially about 19,000 jobs lost in the Faslane and Coulport area, which will clearly have a horrendous impact. It has not been made obvious what would replace those jobs or what alternative naval facilities would be provided there.
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
Before the hon. Gentleman moves on, does he share my concern and consider it to be extraordinary that the gentlemen who appeared before the Select Committee this morning have been seeking answers from the Scottish Government to perfectly reasonable questions, and that the Scottish Government, despite the fact that they have been considering separation for Scotland for decades, have refused to give any answers to those questions for at least another eight months? Does he agree that it is extraordinary that after decades of plans, it will take another eight months even to consider answering important questions?
Mr Davidson
My understanding is that the SNP has existed for some 80 years. It seems somewhat incredible that it has not thought through its plans for how separation would affect the armed forces in Scotland as a whole and Faslane and Coulport in particular, although it is fair to point out that one of the shop stewards at Coulport, in an e-mail exchange with the convenor of shop stewards at Rosyth, said of closure:
“I’d sacrifice for the better of the country.”
That was from an SNP councillor who is also a shop steward at Coulport, Mr Christopher McEleny. In his view, the sacrifice of those jobs would be worth it in the interests of Scotland. To be fair, he said that he did not think it would actually happen, although whether he meant Coulport jobs or Rosyth jobs is not entirely clear, but he was prepared to sacrifice a lot of other people’s jobs in the interests of separation.
The report is worth summarising quickly before I move on to other comments. It is our view, from the evidence that we heard, that nuclear weapons in Scotland could be disarmed within days and removed within months. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] I am glad to hear Scottish Nationalist Members cheering that. If they accept that analysis, it means that there will not be any dispute about the fundamentals; it will then be a question of political will.
We as a Committee have accepted the analysis of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament that, with the co-operation of the Royal Navy and the UK Government, the process of disarming within days and removal within months could be both speedy and safe. Of course there would be consequences. We understand that it is likely to mean the unilateral nuclear disarmament of the United Kingdom, which I notice SNP Members have also cheered, because the construction of facilities elsewhere would take up to 25 years or so.
An insistence upon the speediest possible removal of nuclear weapons from a separate Scotland would obviously have consequences for other negotiations taking place at about the time of separation. Trident is the elephant in the room. It is likely to be the single most expensive item under discussion, and would spill over into all the rest of the dialogue, debate and discussion. The hon. Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey), a former Defence Minister, whose presence in the Chamber today we welcome, gave us clear and explicit evidence of that. The conclusion of our summary, therefore, was that we wanted the UK Government and the Scottish Government to come clean with people in Scotland as quickly as possible about the consequences of separation and the removal of Trident. The onus now lies on the SNP and the Scottish Government to tell us the timetable that they intend to apply.
Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his contribution so far. As he is aware, Trident is one of the systems based at Faslane. There are different views, which the Committee has no doubt heard, of how many jobs are directly reliant on Trident, but we also have seven Astute class submarines, eight Sandown class minehunters and the administrative headquarters at Faslane. Has he had any indication from the Scottish Government which parts they would wish realistically to retain?
Mr Davidson
The key word is “realistically”. We have not had any estimates from the Scottish Government that we regard as solid; we have had to search around. On the point about the number of jobs directly involved with Trident, the UK Government have made it absolutely clear that, on the solid trade union principle of “one out, all out”, if the Trident missile-firing submarines were removed from Faslane, everything else would go—the Trafalgar submarines, the Astute submarines and the headquarters. Within the United Kingdom, the intention is not only for 50 years of secure employment, but for Faslane and Coulport to become a centre of excellence for submarines for the entire United Kingdom. The new Trafalgar boats would therefore be moved there as and when, as well as the training facilities scattered throughout a number of locations in the United Kingdom, so that everything connected with submarines would be on the west coast of Scotland. That is why the number of jobs involved would go up from 6,700 to 8,200 over a period. It is security and growth with the United Kingdom and the great unknown with separation.
To return to the question of removing the nuclear deterrent from Scotland, the statements made so far have the merit of clarity: the SNP wants to remove Trident. Alex Salmond, the First Minister, has said that he wants a written constitution that includes
“an explicit ban on nuclear weapons being based on Scottish territory”.
Interestingly, that does not include a ban on nuclear weapons visiting Scottish territory. The SNP might well intend Scotland to be similar to Norway and Denmark, which have a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and therefore allow nuclear weapons in their waters and on their soil while pretending that they are not. No doubt we will get clarification on that in due course.
The key issue for us is, what are the parameters? Our role as a Committee is to provide information and evidence to the people of Scotland to inform their decisions. If the nuclear weapons are to be removed, we wished to establish the parameters within which that could be done. At one end of the range, according to the CND, it could be done quickly; at the other end, it would require 20 to 25 years to build alternative facilities. Somewhere within there, in the event of a separation decision, will come the solution. People in Scotland, in particular those employed at Faslane and Coulport, deserve to be told now which of those alternatives is favoured by the SNP; it is then the responsibility of the UK Government to respond. The Committee does not accept that it is reasonable for the UK Government not to say anything in such circumstances, but we understand that the first step has to be taken by the SNP, the forces of darkness in the Scottish Government.
The CND, from its evidence, clearly believes that the missiles can be disabled within days. Apparently, there is a fuse thing that can be pulled out, which effectively disables the missiles and means that they will not work any more. Those to whom I cannot refer will no doubt tell me that it is much more complicated than that, but that is the gist. There seemed to be general agreement that those fuses I pulled out could be put in the boot of my car—for the interest of the population, a Vauxhall Vectra, which is not a particularly specialist vehicle—and driven down to England, therefore being removed from Scotland. In such circumstances, the missiles would not work so, within eight days, the missiles could be disarmed, defused, defanged or whatever simile is wished. It would then take eight weeks for the warheads to be removed from the submarines—basically, a big hand comes down, grabs them up and puts them down. Again, the process is a bit more complicated, but that is the gist. Believe it or not, that takes people eight weeks. It is then anticipated that the removal of the nuclear weapons from Scotland would take two years—a figure based on the existing timetable for the replacement of the missiles, because they regularly get lifted out of the submarines in Coulport, with the warheads taken off to be polished or whatever, to be recycled and come back up.
The weapons, therefore, could realistically be removed from Scotland within two years. The subsequent disarming and so on would be a longer process, but that would take place in England; that would be the remaining United Kingdom’s position. No one has come forward to say that that timetable is not viable, feasible or safe. It comes down to a question of political will. The Scottish Government could not do that on their own, however, and they would require technical assistance from the Royal Navy and the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston and elsewhere, but if there was co-operation, it could be achieved. That is one parameter: the weapons could be removed within that time scale.
The other parameter, if the United Kingdom wishes to retain a nuclear, at-sea deterrent, relates to the need to construct alternative facilities elsewhere in the United Kingdom or to base the missiles abroad in some way. Some who came to see us suggested that the missiles, warheads or boats could be based in France or the United States. The responses we have had, however, indicate that that is not as realistic as was once anticipated, so we are setting that option aside. We therefore want to focus on the other parameter, which is the replacement of Faslane.
Nuclear weapons require three functions: support facilities, docking, including loading, and maintenance. A number of alternative locations have been looked at: Devonport, Barrow, Milford Haven and a number of others. Opinion varies about the amount of work necessary for a relocation. One argument is that the facilities could be split. Faslane and Coulport are clearly separate facilities, but they are obviously proximate. The question is whether to have a 20-mile gap and so on, or more. It has been generally accepted that that could be done, but planning requirements are much more stringent now and our evidence indicated that 20 to 25 years is the most realistic estimate of how long it would take the United Kingdom to build replacement facilities, and there is an issue of whether it would want to do that. The political and economic costs of relocating Trident would be huge, and some of the arguments suggest that part of those costs would be borne by a separate Scottish Government. The cost of relocation would be imposed on the United Kingdom by a separate Scottish Government, and the United Kingdom’s view is that it would be reasonable for the Scottish Government to pay at least part, if not all, of those costs.
I expect that that view would not be shared by the Scottish Government, but it would become part of the discussion and debate, and part of the argument. My understanding is that the view on both sides is that nothing is settled until everything is settled, so other lines of the separation budget could not be agreed without this issue also being agreed. Everything would have to be settled together.
Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)
The Select Committee took evidence on relocation, and perhaps its Chair could enlighten me on exactly where and by whom that relocation would take place. The document, “Trident: Nowhere to Go”, analysed every option and historical document going back 30 years when planning was less stringent, and concluded that there was no alternative to Faslane anywhere in English waters. It would be useful to know why the Committee thought there was a possibility of relocation in England.
Mr Davidson
The Committee took the view that there was a possibility of relocation elsewhere in the United Kingdom, not just in England. Locations in Wales were also mentioned. Francis Tusa, editor of Defence Analysis, was perhaps most optimistic about how to do that. He pointed out helpfully that the loading facility at Coulport, which unloads nuclear weapons and so on, is a floating dock. By definition, it floats, so it could presumably be moved, and the facility would not require complete rebuilding in the way that those of us who had not realised that a floating dock floated had assumed. The matter might not be as difficult as it appears, but we are not experts, and it might turn out that that cannot be done, in which case the parameter would change, but it is clear that if it were relocated that would take 20 to 25 years.
Katy Clark
I am incredibly interested in what my hon. Friend is saying. My understanding is that one difficulty is storage, because at the moment a hill or a mountain is used. One proposal seems to be to rebuild such a mountain elsewhere in England or Wales. Did the Committee receive evidence on that ?
Mr Davidson
We visited the storage facility, which is indeed built into the side of a hill, but, with respect, it is not the only hill in the United Kingdom. There are hills and mountains in quite a lot of locations in the United Kingdom. The search for hills is not the main constraint, and several locations were identified.
The matter can be split into different parts. One is the submarines, and we believe that their maintenance could probably be done in places such as Devonport, where there are enough bays and so on. The warhead element is slightly more complex and there are two issues. One is loading and a floating dock; the other is storage. There is storage at Coulport, but I understand—we were not told much—that weapons are not held there for an enormously long time. They are polished and whatever at Aldermaston, then moved to the hill, which is rather Hobbit-like, and then loaded on to submarines. They are not kept there for an enormously long time. It would be possible to store them at Aldermaston or elsewhere, although the journey would be longer and less convenient in many ways and perhaps less safe, but that would be for the Ministry of Defence and the UK Government to determine.
Our view was that that could be done. It would take a long time and it would be expensive. Professor Walker of St Andrews university helpfully said, “Don’t ask me to put a figure on it. I have no idea at all, but certainly it would be billions of pounds.” Francis Tusa thought it would be much less and said, “I have seen reports that it would cost £50 million. No, it wouldn’t. It would cost much less.” The then Minister for the Armed Forces, the hon. Member for North Devon, pointed out that a recent upgrade of the facilities at Faslane had cost £3.5 billion. That was just for an upgrade, so presumably the cost of replacing it would be much higher. We then come back to the extent to which that would form a major part of the dialogue between the Scottish and UK Governments after a separation decision.
I have touched on France and the United States. The other alternative we looked at was maintaining a United Kingdom base in a separate Scotland, similar to the Holy Loch base that the United States had, and the United Kingdom’s sovereign territory in Cyprus. That would have to be negotiated in the spirit of the Edinburgh agreement, which would require best endeavours on both sides.
The matter is not as straightforward as it seems because obviously not just the base would have to be secure. Access and so on would have to be secure, and a substantial amount of water would have to be UK sovereign territory, at least during the period when submarines were leaving. There could be an interesting situation if the Scottish Government instructed Strathclyde police to beat back protestors from outside a UK-owned and maintained Faslane base. The situation could be quite complicated, and not one that the Scottish Government would want.
If a Scottish Government wanted to join NATO, they would have to be part of a nuclear alliance. The compromises that that might involve have not been fully explored. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments must be much clearer about such matters, particularly the relationship with NATO. The Scottish Government have indicated that they are enthusiastic about the concept of joint air bases with the RAF and the Scottish air force sharing facilities. The Ministry of Defence and others have said that there is an issue of control, and if the UK Government wanted to bomb somewhere that the Scottish Government did not want them to bomb, would they have a sovereign right to do so, or would the Scottish Government be able to block the runway?
Joint and shared bases are complicated, and even more so if there were any suggestion that that would be applied to a nuclear base. We took the view that that was a dead end, and that a shared base on Scottish territory or a UK sovereign base on Scottish territory were not runners. We will wait to hear from the Ministry of Defence and the Government in due course, when the Scottish National party has made its proposals.
Mrs Laing
Has the hon. Gentleman had any indication from NATO that if a separate Scotland took action to eject an important part of NATO, such as Trident, from Scottish shores it would be welcome in NATO? Has he had any indication from NATO that a Scottish state behaving in that way would be welcome in NATO?
Mr Davidson
I must confess that NATO has not communicated with me directly on that matter. They might very well listen to me, and I have noticed a number of clicks on my phone, but it has not so far spoken in quite that way. I thank the hon. Lady for drawing my attention to that point—I must monitor my phone more closely. I am sure that NATO will be listening to this debate and, no doubt, waiting—as are the work force in Faslane and Coulport—to hear what the SNP has to say about all this. [Interruption.] There was a mumble from a sedentary position by one of the SNP Members. Would they like to clarify that? No—I thought not.
The alternative provision for Faslane and Coulport has not been made clear. In the resolution that was passed at the SNP conference recently, there was the proposal—indeed, the commitment—that the SNP in a Scottish Government would seek to have submarines. However, the SNP has also said that it would not wish to have any nuclear submarines, so the question comes up of what sort of submarines it would have. Ireland, New Zealand and Iceland all have no submarines. Denmark has just decided to decommission its submarines. The Norwegians have six diesel-electric submarines. If the Scottish navy were to have diesel-electric submarines, two main issues come up: first, where would they be built, and secondly, within what time scale?
Some of us went along to see the BAE Systems shipyard staff and management, and when we suggested to them that they could turn their hand to building submarines, they laughed, because they thought that the idea was so ludicrous. Other experts said to us that any submarines built in the Clyde yards would be the most expensive submarines in the world, ever, on the basis that they were a one-off—whether there were four or six. They said that the yards were not equipped to build submarines, and it would require starting completely from scratch. The style of building submarines is, apparently, from the inside out, and for ships, it is the from the outside in. The technologies are different. Of course, it could be done—with the appropriate amount of money and political will, Hall’s of Broxburn could build submarines—but that is not to say that it would be financially or economically viable. Anything could be done with enough will, commitment and finance.
We have to assume that the diesel-electric submarines would be bought from the main supplier, which is Germany. Therefore, we would have the Scottish navy being equipped with U-boats at a cost that is undetermined and to a timetable that is equally unclear. We have no idea when U-boats from Germany would be able to arrive in Scotland to provide jobs in maintenance at Faslane or Coulport. Of course, we would then have circumstances in which there was a huge gap between the departure of the submarines from the Royal Navy and the arrival of the submarines from Germany, unless the SNP completely abandoned its commitment to remove the submarines from the Clyde as speedily as possible. It is possible to see a compromise being reached, which would require the SNP to undertake a U-turn on its commitment to remove the submarines as quickly as possible. That is the only way in which we could see any possibility of submarine jobs being retained.
The SNP has also said that it wants to have ships at Faslane, which is not unreasonable. It is unclear as yet what ships it desires to have, how the Scottish navy would be broken up, and, at the moment, whether any Scottish naval vessels would be put anywhere other than Faslane. As those familiar with Scottish geography will be aware, Faslane is almost in ideally the wrong place for a navy that would face any threat from the north and east, because it is in the south-west. If people know Argyll, anything coming out of the Clyde would have to sail round the bottom of Argyll—for those who are technically minded, that is the south of Argyll.
Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)
I think the Mull of Kintyre is the correct technical expression.
Mr Davidson
That almost brings on a song, but I will resist the temptation, Mr Bone—perhaps later.
The vessels are, therefore, in entirely the wrong position, with the longest possible sailing time to get to the areas where they would be required. All the military experts to whom we have spoken indicated that it would make sense to have the vessels on the east coast—in Rosyth, or perhaps up near Aberdeen, particularly if, like the Norwegian navy, there were 70 vessels. To be fair, some of those vessels in the Norwegian navy are very small, but it would make sense to have them close to areas that have, say, the oil rigs and so on. However, that cannot be done if the main driver of a policy is the need to guarantee as many jobs as possible in Faslane. It is not militarily rational to say that the entire Scottish navy, such as it would be, would be based in Faslane. That could mean the loss of any jobs concerned with naval matters in Rosyth, which is much easier for those in Faslane to accept than those in Rosyth. The statement that we had from the SNP shop steward and councillor about being willing to accept job losses possibly refers to Rosyth—that is how it has been interpreted in Rosyth.
We also need clarity from the Scottish Government and the SNP about the extent to which headquarters staff could be accommodated sensibly at Faslane. We have had meetings with people in the military who say that it does not make sense to have all the headquarters staff based far away from the seat of Government. We assume, in a separate Scotland, that Helensburgh would not be the seat of Government. It would be Edinburgh, and in those circumstances, it would be appropriate to have a substantial number of headquarters staff situated in Edinburgh, in the same way as the Ministry of Defence is very close to the seat of power here in Westminster. That would further reduce the number of jobs that might be available.
When we get to breaking up the armed forces of the United Kingdom, my understanding is that everyone presently would be given the opportunity to serve with either the Scottish navy, the Scottish air force or the Scottish army. The Scots Guards, for example, if it is to be brought back as a Scottish regiment, might have to be based somewhere. Some of those might be able to go into Faslane, but at present we do not have those answers, and we must seek them.
Sir Nick Harvey (North Devon) (LD)
Surely serving members of the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force or the Army are committed to the Crown and would remain members of the UK armed forces. A Scottish army, navy or air force might be offering them a job, but it should not be assumed that the British Army, Navy or Air Force would automatically be ready to let them all go.
Mr Davidson
We have not yet got to the detail of that. It is another issue that we have to explore. Our understanding is that the policy of the SNP is to resurrect all the Scottish regiments. We are not entirely clear as yet how far back that goes. The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders is, I think, presently destined to become a platoon for Japanese tourists at Edinburgh castle, because it will solely be a display regiment. It is unclear whether the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders will be resurrected as a regiment—as well as all the separate regiments going back, presumably, to the date of their foundation—as is whether the plans apply only to 1945 onwards, or any other date chosen at random.
Our understanding is that no one who wishes to serve with the Scottish armed forces will be refused—that is the policy of the Scottish Government as we understand it; if that is wrong, I wait to hear my SNP colleagues correct me—and that would of course include large numbers of Fijians, who have provided the Royal Scots with one of the best seven-a-side rugby teams in the country. I have watched them on a number of occasions. Fijians play a valuable part in the Scottish regiments. Presumably, as members of Scottish regiments, they will be entitled to remain part of the Scottish armed forces. Scots in the Navy could be scattered all around the world. The position will be similar for Scots in the Air Force. As I understand it, they will be entitled to join the Scottish armed forces. Then there is the question of matching up needs and so on, which will be an intricate exercise. Again, I presume that will be settled in the spirit of co-operation that we are being promised.
However, what we must have spelt out by the Scottish Government as early as possible is a statement of their intentions—their negotiating position. I, for one, agree with the shop stewards who met us this morning—I cannot mention their present location. They indicated that they regard it as unacceptable that they have to wait potentially until November to be told what their future is. That is simply not acceptable. Even if there are 6,700 jobs being created on the Clyde—I very much doubt that; all the figures that we have had suggest that the figure will be much less—the job of an infantryman who has been relocated from the Scots Guards to Faslane is not the same job as is held at the moment by a fully trained engineer working on nuclear submarines. One job might balance the other in simply numerical terms, but they are not necessarily the same people, unless the intention is to conscript the engineering work force into the Scots Guards, in which case they would match up. The Scottish Government need to be clear about how these things will operate in practice.
This is the first of a series of debates that the Scottish Affairs Committee intends to hold on separation, the consequences of separation and the need for the Scottish people as a whole to have as much information as possible available to them before they cast their vote.
Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I congratulate the Chairman of the Scottish Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson), on opening the debate and outlining clearly the choices that will face the Scottish people in next year’s referendum. I agree with almost everything that he said—I think, though, that Helensburgh does have a good claim to be the capital of an independent Scotland. Apart from that, I fully agree with what he said about the future of Scotland and the choice that the Scottish people face in the referendum in October 2014.
In the referendum, the people of Scotland will have two choices. One is to maintain the Union; the other is to separate from the United Kingdom and form an independent Scottish state. For one path—keeping the Union—we have a very clear idea of what will be based at Faslane and Coulport. We know that the Royal Navy will stay there. We know that all the Astute class submarines will move to Faslane, which will become the base for all Britain’s submarines. We know that the number of jobs there will increase to more than 8,000.
For the alternative path—separation—we have very little idea of what will happen. I hope that the SNP Members present, the hon. Members for Angus (Mr Weir) and for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), will give a clear explanation of what would happen should the SNP win the referendum and what the Scottish armed forces would be made up of.
The debate is entitled on the Order Paper “Terminating Trident—Days or Decades?” First, I want to touch on what I think would happen to Trident should the SNP win the referendum. The Scottish Government have been adamant that they would not lease to the UK or any other Government a base for submarines that were nuclear-powered or that carried nuclear missiles. I believe them. I think that that is something in which they are sincere, and that we have to take it as a starting point that Trident would go in days rather than decades.
However, as the Chairman of the Select Committee outlined, there are great practical difficulties. What would the United Kingdom do when faced with an eviction notice from an independent Scottish Government? The Committee, in our evidence-gathering sessions, took evidence from a wide variety of experts about whether it was possible to relocate Trident and the submarines elsewhere in England or Wales, and that just does not seem to be within the realms of practical possibility. My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey), when he was the Minister for the Armed Forces, gave evidence to the Committee and described the cost as “gargantuan”. Other experts gave very large numbers. Therefore, there would be a cost problem.
The other problem would be location. Whereas it may be possible to replicate the facilities at Faslane elsewhere, replicating the facilities at Coulport elsewhere would be extremely difficult. The hill is very large. There are many such hills in Argyll, but finding such a large hill in the rest of the United Kingdom that was next to the sea and relatively close to where there was an industrial work force would be very difficult. I believe that only one place has been mentioned. The Welsh Government at one point put forward Milford Haven as an alternative, but I think that that met with objections from other people in Wales and I certainly have not heard that idea being floated recently. There would also be the problem of what to do with the petrochemical complex there.
The conclusion, I think, is clear. I simply do not believe that if the Scottish Government won the referendum and evicted the Royal Navy from Faslane, the United Kingdom Government would relocate elsewhere, because as well as the problems of location and the political problems, there would be the problem of cost. “Gargantuan” was how my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon described it, and the United Kingdom would lose 10% of its tax revenue when Scotland became a separate state.
I therefore think that the only choice open to the United Kingdom Government would be decommissioning. I think that the decommissioning would probably start fairly quickly after the referendum if the SNP won it. The timetable that the SNP has laid out is as follows: 18 months of negotiations, followed by Scotland becoming a separate state on 1 April 2016. During that time, of course, the devolved Government at Holyrood would have a mandate from the referendum to commence negotiations. I believe that they are sincere in their opposition to nuclear weapons and that there would be no point in the United Kingdom Government hanging about; I think that the decommissioning would probably start straight away. [Interruption.] From a sedentary position, the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire says that they would have no choice.
Mr Reid
I am now confused by the hon. Gentleman. Rather than chuntering away from a sedentary position, perhaps he could get up and explain just what the position of the Scottish Government would be if they won the referendum. No, he has chosen not to do so. I look forward to his speech.
The Select Committee report said that, should the SNP win the referendum, it would probably take about two years for Trident to be gone from Faslane. There would be two years’ worth of work there—probably not as much work as there is at the moment—in the decommissioning process, but what would happen next? That is a big question on which we still await details from the SNP, but let us consider what other countries that are in a similar position to that of an independent Scottish state do with their defence.
Let us take one of the countries in what used to be termed by the SNP the arc of prosperity—Ireland. The Irish navy consists of eight patrol boats. However, eight patrol boats are not going to keep anything like the current Faslane work force in a job. It is also extremely unlikely that those eight patrol boats would all be based at Faslane, because what assets would an independent Scottish navy seek to defend? The key assets would clearly be the oil rigs and fishing grounds in the North sea, but as the Chairman of the Select Committee pointed out, that is entirely the opposite side of the country to Faslane.
I can imagine an incident on an oil rig, for which a patrol boat based at Faslane would have to sail down the Clyde, round the Mull of Kintyre, up the west coast of Scotland, through the Minch, round Cape Wrath, through the Pentland firth and eventually arrive at the incident. Clearly an independent Scotland would base at least half of its patrol boats at an east coast port—Rosyth, Aberdeen or Lerwick, for example. Even if Scotland’s navy were slightly bigger than Ireland’s and we had 10 or 15 patrol boats, probably only about six of them would be based at Faslane. That would keep only a handful of people in jobs.
We often hear references to the Norwegian and Danish navies from the SNP. They are certainly bigger than the Irish navy, but I have to point out that Scandinavian taxation is a lot higher than taxation in Britain or Ireland. People in Scandinavian countries pay about 10p to 15p in the pound more in taxation than people in Britain or Ireland do. I have never heard the SNP say that we would all be paying 10p or 15p more in the pound in taxes in an independent Scotland, which we would have to do to have a navy the size of a Scandinavian navy, but even if we matched the size of the biggest of the Scandinavian navies, there would still be far fewer jobs at Faslane and Coulport than there are at the moment.
Lindsay Roy
Why does the hon. Gentleman think there is a vacuum in SNP defence policy after so long declaring that it wants independence?
Mr Reid
I can only speculate, but my speculation is that the SNP simply does not have a clue what to do. It simply knows that there would be nothing like the same number of jobs in defence in an independent Scotland. We would see mass unemployment at Faslane and Coulport, and the SNP is not willing to own up to it. It must own up to the fact that, if it wants a Scandinavian-sized navy, it has to levy Scandinavian levels of tax on Scotland. People would have to pay 10p to 15p in the pound more in tax, and the SNP is simply not willing to face up to that fact.
I represent the prosperous town of Helensburgh. Part of the reason for its prosperity is the well-paid, specialist jobs at Faslane and Coulport. The people of Scotland will have a simple choice in 2014: they can keep the Union, the Royal Navy and the thousands of jobs, and Helensburgh and the surrounding area will prosper, or they can vote for separation, and they will get a few patrol boats, a small navy and a P45. I know what choice my constituents will make.
Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)
Order. I intend the winding-up speeches to start at 4 o’clock. Hon. Members can see how many Members stood to contribute. I do not intend to impose a time limit at the moment; although the Speaker has given permission, perhaps self-regulation is better.
Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)
I am pleased to be able to contribute to the debate on how after independence we will finally get rid of weapons of mass destruction from Scotland.
The location of nuclear weapons has long been a contentious issue in Scotland, going back at least to the establishment of the Polaris system on the Clyde. Indeed, it spawned a mini industry of protest songs, pointing out the absolute absurdity of the argument that we build prosperity by threatening nuclear annihilation. Hon. Members will be pleased to hear that I will not attempt to sing any of them, but the older among us might remember the anthem of the time:
“Singin’ Ding Dong Dollar, everybody holler, Ye canny spend a dollar when ye’re deid”.
The argument has been a constant thread through the politics of Scotland ever since. The position of the Scottish National party has been consistent and clear. We do not want those weapons, and they should be gone at the first possible opportunity. Next year in the referendum, the people of Scotland will have the opportunity to make that happen by voting for independence.
I have to confess that I was somewhat cynical when I heard that the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs was undertaking a report on Trident; after all, its membership is unlikely to be sympathetic to the aims of the SNP. I was, however, absolutely delighted when the report very clearly stated:
“Nuclear weapons in Scotland could be disarmed within days and removed within months.”
That fantastic news will be warmly welcomed by people throughout Scotland. As the Deputy First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, put it in her letter to the Committee:
“As a nation Scotland has consistently shown itself to be opposed to the possession, threat and use of nuclear weapons—a position taken by a majority of Parliamentarians, churches, trade unions and many voluntary organisations, as well as articulated by the Scottish people in opinion polls.”
Pamela Nash (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab)
Is the hon. Gentleman saying that it is the position of the SNP that it would remove nuclear weapons within days rather than decades if Scotland left the UK?
Mr Weir
I will come to that very point in a moment.
Many of those who give Trident as a reason not to vote for independence were not so long ago of the view that the UK should get rid of it. It appears that it is not a problem for the UK to get rid of the system, but it would somehow be a huge problem for an independent Scotland. Labour’s shadow Secretary of State for Defence, the right hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy), only yesterday confirmed that Labour is now in favour of a like-for-like replacement for Trident, and that would cost at least £25 billion, probably much more. That is an obscene waste of money when all our services are under strain and threat due to budget cuts.
Gemma Doyle (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab/Co-op)
That is absolutely not what the shadow Secretary of State for Defence said. He reiterated that the Labour party is committed to the retention of a credible, minimum, independent deterrent. He did not say that we were committed to a like-for-like replacement.
Mr Weir
That is not my understanding of what was heard on the radio. The position of the Scottish National party is clear and unequivocal: when we achieve our independence, we will get rid of nuclear weapons from Scotland as quickly as we can.
In her letter, Nicola Sturgeon states clearly:
“Following a Yes vote in the referendum, it would be the responsibility of the Scottish and UK governments to continue to work together, in good faith and on the basis of mutual respect, to agree the arrangements for the safe and timely withdrawal of the Trident nuclear weapons system from an Independent Scotland.”
The Scottish Government are happy to discuss the issue, but it appears from the UK Government’s response to the report that they are not prepared to do so and would rather bury their head in the sand and pretend that withdrawal will not happen.
Katy Clark
Although many people in Scotland would be pleased if Trident went, they would not be pleased at the removal of the other naval jobs at Faslane. Does the hon. Gentleman agree?
Mr Weir
Not at the moment.
It is my firm hope that we can see these dreadful weapons put beyond use as soon as possible after we achieve our independence. The report goes into some detail on possible scenarios, and it is very heartening to hear that the weapons could be disabled within days. The report’s title asks whether we can terminate Trident within days or decades, and, in direct answer to the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Pamela Nash), I do not know whether we can realistically do it within days, but I am certain it will not take decades.
After Scotland votes yes, there will be 18 months in which we negotiate those matters that need to be agreed between the two Governments. Trident will be high on that list. I hope that, by the end of that period, we will be well on the way to seeing those weapons gone from our shores for ever.
Mr McKenzie
The hon. Gentleman makes it clear that the SNP’s position is to rid Scotland of nuclear weapons. How does that square with the SNP’s desire to creep back under the nuclear umbrella and gain security through joining NATO?
Mr Weir
Twenty-five of the 28 member states in NATO do not have nuclear weapons. The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) asked whether NATO would let Scotland in if we wanted rid of nuclear weapons; I remind her that Canada, a member of NATO, got rid of its nuclear weapons in 1984 and Greece, another member of NATO, got rid of them in 2001. It is not unprecedented. Norway does not have nuclear weapons, for example.
Much of the rest of the report goes into detail about the options open to the UK Government in finding an alternative to Faslane. Frankly, that does not appear to me to be the concern of the Scottish people or Government. It is a matter for the UK Government, should they wish to continue with the possession of nuclear weapons. Scottish independence gives the remainder of the UK the perfect opportunity to accept that it can no longer justify the possession of such weapons and to decide that it will no longer have them, but that is a decision for it to make. It is worth noting that even some military figures have begun to question the wisdom of retaining Trident in the UK, given the huge cuts to conventional forces.
Michael Connarty
The hon. Gentleman said earlier that he wished to see our shores rid of such weapons. As someone who has been a supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament since the days of Polaris, and who remains a member of the parliamentary CND, I am concerned about the safety of all the nations in the United Kingdom. Is he saying that neither he nor the Scottish Government care if there is a similar danger elsewhere in the UK to the lives of the people in the UK?
Mr Weir
I have just said that, in my opinion, the UK should get rid of Trident. However, once we have our independence and the missiles are removed from Scotland, if the UK wants to retain them, that is a matter for the remainder of the UK. Scotland will not have them. We will have nothing to do with them.
Interestingly, as the report suggests, there seem to be alternatives. Francis Tusa of Defence Analysis has been quoted as saying that the problems have been exaggerated. It appears that the UK Government do not want to site the missiles on the south coast of England for fear that the missiles would be too near centres of population, but it does not seem to worry them that Faslane is close to the main centres of the population of Scotland.
It seems curious that there is objection to the use of Kings Bay in Georgia, because it might give the impression that Trident is not a totally independent system. I think most people think that already. Given that the report says that a stockpile of weapons is stored there and that the UK already contributes £12 million per annum towards the site, it seems that there is already considerable involvement there. Francis Tusa also makes the point that previously there were shared storage facilities with the Americans at Iserlohn in Germany, but such considerations are for the remaining parts of the UK, not the Scottish Government, who wish to see the missiles removed from Scotland.
Much of the debate has been about the impact on jobs if the Trident system left Faslane, but nowhere in the report is there a mention of the jobs implication; the report is about what the UK might do with Trident when Scotland is independent and ensures that we do not have weapons of mass destruction on our soil. However, the Scottish National party understands the concerns of those who work at the base.
Scottish Ministers have made it clear that they are fully committed to the future of Her Majesty’s Naval Base Clyde in an independent Scotland, operating as a conventional naval base without nuclear weapons. We are the only party in Scotland to have made that commitment.
The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr Andrew Robathan)
I have in my hand what I think was intended to be a secret submission from Mr John Swinney, the Finance Minister of Scotland. It is about the SNP’s commitment, should separatism work. He said:
“I have made clear to the Defence Workstream”—
they are the people studying this—
“that a much lower budget must be assumed.”
How is he going to afford to keep open the naval base if he is going to have a much lower budget?
Mr Weir
I find that incredible, from the Minister who is presiding over the slashing of the UK defence budget. He has just, under the basing review, betrayed the previous promises made to Scotland.
We have said that the defence budget of an independent Scotland will be £2.5 billion. We have made that commitment; that is what we will do. That is an appropriate defence budget for a country the size of Scotland and for the facilities that we will need in an independent Scotland.
Mr Weir
We have made our position on that absolutely clear. I am sorry that the hon. Lady does not appreciate it. I can say no further than what I have said. We will join NATO if we do not have nuclear weapons on our shores. If NATO insists on nuclear weapons, we will not join NATO. It is as simple and pure as that. We have made that point absolutely certain.
Mr David Hamilton (Midlothian) (Lab)
If the hon. Gentleman has calculated a figure of £2.5 billion, it must mean that he has understood what he will be left with. I have never seen a single thing that tells us what the size of the navy, air force or army would be. What is it now? Will he confirm the size of our armed forces in Scotland? He has £2.5 billion. What would that represent?
Mr Weir
We have already said that our armed forces will be in the region of 15,000. That is on the record.
I have given way enough, and I would like to make some progress.
Scotland’s share of UK defence forces and our share of Trident costs could be used for the diversification of HMNB Clyde and to create jobs that met the defence, economic and public service priorities of an independent Scotland. Scotland’s population share of Trident running costs is estimated at around £163 million per year, while its population share of the Ministry of Defence’s estimated costs for the replacement of the Trident submarine fleet and infrastructure equates to around £1.25 billion to £1.7 billion. That is at least £84 million for each and every year of the 15 years it would take to construct.
A recent freedom of information request to the MOD revealed that 520 civilian jobs at Faslane and Coulport are directly dependent on Trident. That is only a small proportion of the more-than-6,500 military and civilian personnel who support operations at the bases. Channel 4’s “FactCheck” reported in 2007 that the lion’s share of Trident jobs—around 12,340—are based elsewhere in the United Kingdom, not in Scotland.
Mr Weir
No, I will not.
There is no reason why the vast majority of Trident-based jobs cannot be redeployed in the redevelopment of the bases for non-nuclear defence use. In addition, the money being spent on Trident could be much better used to provide high-quality jobs in the area and beyond.
The argument put to the Select Committee by a Defence Minister, which was quoted in the report, that Scotland would somehow have to pay for a replacement base is laughable. If the remainder of the UK wants to keep those dreadful weapons, it is up to it to find a solution on where to base them, and to pay for them.
Whatever the discussions or arguments regarding the removal of Trident from Scotland after independence, no one should be in any doubt that it is our clear intention that the weapons will go as quickly as is safe.
Recently there has been much argument about the costs of Trident. It is completely unaffordable. Malcolm Chalmers of the Royal United Services Institute noted that about 35% of the MOD’s total core procurement budget would be going on Trident by 2021.
Such weapons are immoral. If they were ever used, they would indiscriminately destroy hundreds of thousands of lives and do untold damage to humanity and our planet, if not destroy it completely. The UK is a signatory of the non-proliferation treaty. We spend a lot of time telling others that they should not have nuclear weapons—indeed those who are developing civil nuclear programmes—for fear of what they might do with them. It is high time that we took a lead and accepted that we can no longer sustain a nuclear capability.
Bishop Desmond Tutu has put the argument much better than I could:
“We cannot intimidate others into behaving well when we ourselves are misbehaving. Yet that is precisely what nations armed with nuclear weapons hope to do by censuring North Korea for its nuclear tests and sounding alarm bells over Iran’s pursuit of enriched uranium. According to their logic, a select few nations can ensure the security of all by having the capacity to destroy all.
Until we overcome this double standard—until we accept that nuclear weapons are abhorrent and a grave danger no matter who possesses them, that threatening a city with radioactive incineration is intolerable no matter the nationality or religion of its inhabitants—we are unlikely to make meaningful progress in halting the spread of these monstrous devices, let alone banishing them from national arsenals.
Why, for instance, would a proliferating state pay heed to the exhortations of the US and Russia, which retain thousands of their nuclear warheads on high alert? How can Britain, France and China expect a hearing on non-proliferation while they squander billions modernising their nuclear forces?”
Someone once said that a unilateralist is a multilateralist who means it. I give no apology for believing that we need to get rid of nuclear weapons. Scotland, at least, wants rid of them and means it.
Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)
Order. I will first call Members who have properly applied to the Chair, and then other Members. I call Katy Clark.
Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Bone. I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I will try to be brief, because I appreciate that a considerable number of Members wish to speak.
I speak as someone who is opposed to nuclear weapons in any part of the United Kingdom. Indeed, along with the majority of Scottish MPs, I voted against the replacement of Trident when we had the opportunity to vote on that in the last Parliament. I speak from that perspective, but I find it astonishing that the Scottish National party takes the view that if Scotland vote for independence next year, what would be left of the British Government, and presumably the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) if he were still Prime Minister—having gone down in history as the Prime Minister who lost Scotland—would bend over backwards to facilitate a new Scotland in every area of policy, whether on the economy, our currency, Europe or Trident, which we are debating today.
We have heard powerful contributions about the cost of relocating Trident within the United Kingdom. The Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson), articulately outlined the huge cost that would be involved. It is absolutely clear that there would be no easy solution if that were the outcome. Some people believe that we would need storage relatively adjacent to the submarine base—for safety reasons, apart from anything else—and the reality is that there are very few, if any, locations in England or Wales that would be suitable. The Government of the rest of the UK would have a huge financial headache if they wished to continue to be a country in possession of nuclear weapons. It is unlikely that a Government in that position would be co-operative.
The evidence received by the Select Committee from the Ministry of Defence clearly shows that, should Scotland decide that it no longer wants Trident to be based there, it would not be willing to continue with any other facilities currently based there. That is an indication of the likely response that a newly independent Scotland would get in many areas of policy, not only in defence.
David Mowat
That is a good point. One issue that would be negotiated in the 18-month period is whether the new Scottish Government would use the pound and whether the Bank of England would be the lender of last resort to them. Does the hon. Lady think that that discussion or negotiation might be more difficult if the Scottish Government had just kicked out Trident?
Katy Clark
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I will not stray too far down that avenue. I suspect that that would move us away from the subject of today’s debate, about which you might have something to say, Mr Bone. However, he makes the powerful point that the Scottish Government must be aware that if they succeed in persuading the Scottish people to vote for independence next year, there will be implications in a range of areas.
Sandra Osborne
Does my hon. Friend agree that if there were unresolved bitterness about Trident between a newly separate Scotland and the rest of the UK, that would affect all the negotiations and influence our international partners—for example, in relation to any application to join the EU?
Katy Clark
My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. The Scottish National party often forgets that not only will England, Wales and Northern Ireland have views on this issue, but many other European countries will be interested in the internal implications for themselves. For example, Spain may not want to create the precedent of allowing one part of a current member country of the European Union an easy process for continuing to be a member of the EU, given that it has to deal with situations such as the one in Catalonia.
The general point is that we cannot presume that negotiations would be easy on all matters if Scotland voted for independence. The hon. Member for Angus (Mr Weir), who spoke on behalf of the Scottish National party, therefore needs to think about his comment that it would be laughable for an independent Scotland to have to take at least a share of the cost of relocating Trident. Whatever the Scottish National party’s views about what is a reasonable negotiating position, it should be aware that it might have to negotiate with people with very different views.
That is one reason why there has been a great deal of speculation in Scotland about whether the Scottish National party would honour its position of not having nuclear weapons in Scotland if we became independent. I very much hope that it would: we should not have nuclear weapons in any part of the United Kingdom. I would therefore be sympathetic to much of what the hon. Gentleman said about the implication for jobs, if we were talking only about Trident. Of course, a whole range of work has been done on which people employed at Faslane and Coulport are related strictly to Trident and its replacement, and which are related to other military activities that currently take place in Scotland but may not continue to do so.
As I said in my intervention on the Chair of the Select Committee, there is now an incoming fleet of seven Astute class submarines, eight Sandown class minehunters and the administrative headquarters of the Royal Navy in Scotland, northern England and Northern Ireland. As the Chair said, further work will come to that area as a result of our union with the other constituent parts of the United Kingdom.
The hon. Member for Angus said that the defence budget for an independent Scotland would be about £2.5 billion. It would be interesting to hear at some point—perhaps from his colleague, the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), or from the Scottish Government—exactly what that would look like and mean, particularly for the areas affected should Scotland decide to become independent and to withdraw Trident, given what the Ministry of Defence has said about the implications of that on other parts of military policy.
I am grateful to have had the opportunity to speak in this debate. It is an important debate for Scotland, because the reality is that the Scottish National party’s policy on Trident has been successful for it over many years. In Scotland, there is a very different tradition on such issues than there is in other parts of the United Kingdom. In opinion polls, the replacement of Trident has consistently been unpopular. Indeed, over many decades, many people in Scotland have opposed nuclear weapons. Whether we go back to the 1950s and 1960s, with the demonstrations against Polaris, or the 1980s, with those against both Cruise and of course Trident, which was brought in afterwards, the anti-nuclear movement has been very strong in Scotland.
For the purposes of this debate, whether people are for or against nuclear weapons should not be a reason for taking one side or the other on independence. If Scotland decide to become independent, we would still be grappling with the same issues and having to deal with other parts of this country. I therefore say to the Scottish National party that as much honesty and information as possible in this debate would be in everybody’s interest and ensure that the people of Scotland can make an educated choice when the time comes.
Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure, Mr Bone, to speak under your chairmanship, which I have done a number of times in other venues in meetings of the all-party parliamentary group on human trafficking.
I said earlier that I have been against nuclear weapons in the UK since Polaris was brought to the Clyde. It was the great contamination of our nation—I mean the United Kingdom rather than just Scotland. I was deeply distressed by the comments of the hon. Member for Angus (Mr Weir), who indicated that as long as the SNP could get it out of Scotland, Trident would then be someone else’s decision. I would still be campaigning against it wherever it was to be relocated, and I would argue strongly against it being relocated anywhere within the UK.
Quite simply, I support the “Terminating Trident”—or banning the bomb, as we used to call it—part of the subject matter of this debate. Most of the wonderful songs written about that came from the Labour movement, not the Scottish National party, which was a minuscule organisation in Scotland at the time, because it was focused, as always, on breaking up the United Kingdom and separating Scotland from the UK. It was never part of the movement that was clearly committed to organising against the bomb. I went on the marches and I visited the peace camps. I did not see any Scottish National party members there; I saw members of the Labour movement in Scotland arguing for a better future with no nuclear weapons anywhere in the UK.
We are debating not just what happens to those pieces of metal, and the international motions and structures we sign up to that enable us to use such weapons, whether under someone else’s banner or not, but what happens to the people. “Ban the bomb but don’t dump the people”—that was always the statement made at demonstrations outside the gates of Faslane and Coulport. It was never about getting rid of the people who were inside doing the job that the nation had asked them to do, using the skills that they had been trained in and were proud to serve their country with. Unfortunately, that is the unanswered question, which was asked by the Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee.
If we are to have such a monumental change in the structure of the defence budget, after what would be the much greater, more cataclysmic decision to separate Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom—Scotland would be leaving 92% of the UK behind and becoming some wee country that would not be a significant player in the world—we must think about how we can deal with that. That is the problem for the SNP Government, who, by the way, as I keep having to repeat, were elected by 24% of the people of Scotland. The structure of the electoral system set up by those under Donald Dewar, who thought that by helping their Liberal comrades they would enable Labour to form an alliance with the Liberals in Scotland, actually advantaged the Scottish National party and gave it a majority. The Labour party, because it had done such an abysmal job in Scotland and lost the faith of the Scottish people, got about half the SNP’s percentage at the election. None the less, a party cannot have a landslide victory when only 24% of the people vote for it. It is a fix that happens because of electoral arithmetic, and it has nothing to do with popular support. If there were some sea change among the people in Scotland, we would have to consider what to do with the bomb.
The Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee said that he has been assured that the fuses could be removed from missiles within eight days. I have recently read a great deal about the nuclear weapons stores of the world, particularly in the US, and learned about the process by which chemicals in the fuse heat up and then trigger the missiles. The people in the States who researched and created those chemical fuses are now all dead. The fuses deteriorate and do not necessarily react 30 or 40 years after they were made. Believe it or not, the US has not yet found a way of synthesising the products that would allow the replacement of those fuses, so we could have a redundant nuclear network throughout the world, including in the UK, within the next decade. Therefore, defusing the missiles might not take eight days; it could be very much quicker than that.
Mr Davidson
Is my hon. Friend saying that the professional advice that I received that it would be safe for me to have the fuses in the back of my Vauxhall Vectra was incorrect?
Michael Connarty
I advise my hon. Friend not to put the chemicals that are contained in the nuclear fuses in the back of his Vectra. In fact, I would not put them in the back of anything that was not a nuclear bomb store. The fuses might not set off a nuclear weapon, but they might blow his Vectra back to the future.
Eight months for removing the warheads is correct. They are kept separate and can be detached and taken somewhere else. As for it taking up to 25 years to relocate the facilities, all the analyses now available publicly in the “Nowhere to Go” document by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament show that there is nowhere for the weapons to be relocated. There was nowhere all those years ago that was thought to be isolated and secure enough to install the nuclear weapons. Now, given the population changes in the conurbations around those areas, it is unlikely that anywhere would allow those weapons to be installed. The question of relocating them, therefore, could not be resolved unless there was some sort of dictatorship of Government on the people in the UK. Certainly, the idea of putting them in Wales or Northern Ireland would cause a massive uprising.
Should we even be thinking about moving the weapons somewhere else? It is a fantasy to think that in the event of a nuclear conflagration, Scotland would be safer having them somewhere else that was not Faslane or Coulport. Do we really think that an enemy of the UK would not want to bomb the establishments based in my constituency in Grangemouth, where the North sea oil and gas comes in, just because we put the weapons somewhere else? What are we going to do? Are we going to paint CND signs on the tops of all the buildings in Scotland? Let me own up to something. When I was leader of a council, we actually did put CND signs on our vans. Somebody pointed out that we should have put them on the roof because they could not be seen on the side of the vans, but we were young and foolish then. I have learned now that it is a nonsense to say that we are not part of the UK because we do not have the bomb any more and that if there were a conflagration we would be safe. I thought that the SNP Government and Alex Salmond, who is just about my age, had also grown up.
Pete Wishart
Of course it is right to say that if there were a nuclear strike, it is unlikely that Scotland would be spared the consequences, but should one not reflect the values of one’s community or one’s nation and say, “We refuse to hold these weapons. We refuse to threaten other peoples with these weapons.” Should we not be doing what we can to reflect the views of the Scottish people in this matter?
Michael Connarty
The hon. Gentleman is actually a little bit late. Having campaigned with the Labour movement over many years, my understanding is that more than 70% of the people of Scotland are already against these weapons. Therefore, changing the mood of the people in Scotland by removing the weapons is not the point. I want to see the mood changed throughout the United Kingdom so that we can persuade a Government in the future—a Labour Government, I hope—that we should be moving in the direction of taking the weapons out of the whole land mass of the UK; that is my aim. If my SNP colleagues, who support the idea of ridding the world of these nuclear weapons, want to go off and hide in a corner then they can do so, but they should not pretend that it is sensible Government policy. I am working up to my next point, “Don’t dump the people.”
Mrs Laing
Although I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman, I fully appreciate that the position that he takes and has always taken is a position of principle. However, is it not rather hypocritical on the part of the Scottish National party to say, “We don’t want nuclear weapons here, but we will depend on the rest of this island of Great Britain to have nuclear weapons and to have a credible defence policy that will continue to protect Scotland”? However much the SNP pretends that Scotland can be separate, we are all on this small island together.
[Mr Andrew Rosindell in the Chair]
Michael Connarty
I would not necessarily drift into unparliamentary language, such as “hypocrisy”; I think that is ill-judged and unfortunately a negative force in politics. I worry about the principles of the SNP. The issue is not independence, but the tenets on which the SNP bases its independence argument, of being separate and somehow thinking that it can be detached from other people’s concerns.
I am a socialist; I still want to see a world socialist organisation that tears down capitalism. If we have not learned the lesson from what the gamblers in the banks did—it was not gamblers in the Government, but gamblers in the banks—to our nations, not just here but throughout the world, then we have learned nothing. Of course, this Government have learned nothing from all that, as we can see from the policies that they are involved in at the moment.
The figure given by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson), the Chairman of the Scottish Affairs Committee, was that 6,700 jobs—possibly up to 8,200 jobs—rely on Trident at the moment. There is also the question about all the other jobs that are attached to it, such as shipbuilding and the industries and supply sources that feed into it. I do not want to see those people made redundant; I want to see these people being reskilled, redeployed and creating useful things for our nation.
That is the one thing missing from the SNP’s arguments—the SNP has not done that work. It has not worked out how to deal with this question. The idea is that we just empty the warheads out of Trident and put all the soldiers in who are going to come back and volunteer, before they are quickly made redundant because £2.5 billion of budget will not keep many soldiers in a job and Scotland certainly will not have a navy, or many helicopters or planes to fly. It is a joke, it is unfair and it is an insult to the Scottish people to say, by assertion, “We can do this and it will all work.”
Instead we can look at the people who have been arguing closely alongside me—or me alongside them, I should say, because I respect them and their contribution is much greater than mine. For example, there are the people from the Bradford Disarmament Research Centre, including Dr Nick Ritchie, who has been doing tremendous work. The centre produced a report on Trident in 2008, “Trident: What is it For?”, which argues and shows that Trident is not for anything in the modern world, quite frankly; Trident is a nonsense. The centre talks sensibly, as the SNP should be doing to challenge the assertions that are made and the questions that are asked by the Scottish Affairs Committee. The centre produced another report in 2009, “Stepping down the Nuclear Ladder: Options for Trident on a Path to Zero”, which worked out how we can go—step by step—away from these weapons and what we can do with them. In 2010, the centre produced the report, “Continuity/Change: Rethinking Options for Trident Replacement”. These reports are fundamental sources of information about how we can move away from a world, and a UK, that has nuclear weapons in its armoury, and use the money for something much more useful.
However, what do we have from the Government? What we have from the Government is the fact that they are going to step up the main-gate costs in 2016. Those costs are going to be enormous and we will be landed with another generation of weapons, like for like, that is not justifiable, that was never justifiable according to the 2008 report I referred to, that is not sustainable and that should not be moved along with.
As we know, a commission is sitting and considering the question of the future of Trident. I had the pleasure of going along to one of the discussions around the review, “Trident Alternatives Review and the Future of Barrow”. Why do I mention Barrow? It is because that review is the kind of work that the SNP Government should have been doing if they really meant to remove Trident and if they were not just about government by assertion or politics by gesture. That is the kind of work that should have been done, but I see none of that work being done by the SNP. That review argued very strongly that if we want to have a situation where Barrow, which builds these submarines, will be without that work, we must invest £100 million per year in that community to reskill people and look to the future. If that process continued, there would then be a new set of people with a new set of skills, who would build an economy in that area.
The SNP has done none of that work. What are we going to have? Heathers and bagpipes up the Kyle of Lochalsh? Is that what the future is going to be about? Is it going to be about emptying out the area and letting the people drift away, and hoping that the people who remain there will somehow attract tourists who will give them handouts? The work has not been done.
I will tell you an interesting fact, Mr Rosindell, as you have taken the Chair. When I looked into my wife’s ancestors, I discovered that her third great-grandfather was the ferry manager from Ardentinny to Faslane. In his day, there was an agricultural community on both sides of the water, and that route became a route for people to go down into the central belt of Scotland; sadly, that emptied out most of that area. The idea that we could not have people living there with high skills, in a very attractive area, who could work in the conurbations of Scotland and commute, or in fact who could create whole new industries in that area, is a nonsense.
Let us consider a parallel. When I first came into the House, I went down to visit Baglan Bay. Baglan Bay was a BP refinery and chemical site, because we thought that the oil would come from the other side of the world and to the west coast of the nation. BP realised that would not make sense, because of North sea oil, so it shut down Baglan Bay, slowly but surely. However, there are more jobs in that area today than there were when BP had its refinery and when there was a chemical industry there, because the Wales Office, which was then responsible, planned for the change, trained people for it and put the infrastructure in for it. None of that type of work has been done by the SNP Government, because they live by assertion; they do not live by standard logic and proof.
Pete Wishart
I have listened very carefully to the hon. Gentleman’s remarks. Like me, he is passionately against nuclear weapons; he believes that we need to rid the world of this scourge—this immoral curse that we have on our land. We say that we will get rid of them after we secure independence. He wants rid of them too, so what is his plan for jobs once he secures his ambition to ensure that Trident is cleared from Faslane? What would he do for jobs?
Michael Connarty
I am very happy to answer that question, because I have just given the example of the work that has been done on Barrow. People who are looking at the future of the UK without nuclear weapons are looking at what it takes. It is not a matter of location; it is a matter of industrial, manufacturing and education policy. Whether or not we had stopped making gas lanterns in Faslane and we were going to make some new things for the nation, we would have to plan and train, put people in the skill set, and give them the infrastructure. Whether something is made redundant by technology or by the movement of history, such as the movement of agricultural workers to the conurbations, it is a cycle. A nation must plan ahead for the people and for its needs in the future.
That is what is missing. A very legitimate question was asked by the Scottish Affairs Committee, “What do you do in this situation?” The Committee is asking the SNP Government to answer that question, and it is getting nothing; it is getting silence. I do not think that this argument about Trident adds to the arguments for independence, but it would be nice to think that the Government of Scotland at this moment were planning to do something and would put forward a plan that the people could look at, but they are not doing that. Instead, they are saying, “Jump off the cliff. It’s all right, you’ll find the water’s warm when you land.”
Katy Clark
My hon. Friend has already made reference to his time as a leader of a Scottish local authority. Of course, at that time he was exceptionally well known for his radical credentials. And at that time, the Labour party’s position was that we wanted to get rid of nuclear weapons in this country, and a huge amount of work was done by Labour and the trade unions on defence diversification. Is he aware whether the Scottish Government have devoted any office or time to defence diversification, and does he think that that is exactly the kind of information that should be coming to the fore at this time?
Andrew Rosindell (in the Chair)
Before the hon. Gentleman replies to that question, I remind him that there are others who want to get into this debate and he has already been speaking for 18 minutes. Thank you.
Michael Connarty
I am very grateful to you, Mr Rosindell, for saying that, after all this time that I have been campaigning, I am not allowed much more than 18 minutes. If anything I have said is redundant, I strike it from the record, but what I would say is that the questions asked in the context of the Scottish Affairs Committee remain unanswered. The questions that I asked, which are slightly different from those of the Scottish Affairs Committee, remain unanswered in most of the context of the UK, but we have some indication that the nuclear industry commission, which has Lord Browne of Ladyton and others on it, is beginning to look very seriously at that issue. The point that the commission makes, and I make, is whether or not we have a scenario with a final conclusion, which might come from independence or the removal of Trident because of some other reason, we must plan, argue and invest for the future. None of that is in the SNP documents that I have found; in fact, the question of weapons diversification is not on the agenda at all. It is all about government by suggestion. In that context, I have to conclude that if the argument is that we would feel morally better if we got rid of Trident, we should do so on a UK basis. None of the arguments I have heard show that the SNP has any idea what it would do if it had independence and was facing the removal of Trident from Faslane and Scotland.
Andrew Rosindell (in the Chair)
Order. Before I call the next speaker, may I point out that if everyone keeps their speeches to a reasonable length, everyone can get in? If people go beyond more than 10 minutes, that will not be possible.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
Welcome to the Chair, Mr Rosindell. I hope you enjoy your little session in what is always the friendly, convivial atmosphere of Scottish debates.
I welcome this debate, because everybody knows that Trident will be a huge, iconic issue in the 2014 independence referendum. It will probably shape a number of people’s impressions about independence, and it could have a major influence on how people choose to vote. We can be absolutely and abundantly clear—every Member in the Chamber understands this—that if there is a yes vote in the independence referendum, Scotland will be clear of the scourge of the immoral weapon of mass destruction that is the Trident system. The Scottish people and the Scottish nation will no longer host the UK’s arsenal of these appalling weapons; our nation, our society and our community will no longer host Trident weapons.
Trident will be removed as quickly and safely as possible—that is what we have said. If colleagues here want to agonise over what “quickly and safely” means, we will leave that up to them. We will co-operate, sit down, discuss, negotiate and be as helpful as possible, but our intention is to get rid of Trident weapons as quickly and safely as possible.
We would sit down with the Government today to start discussing how that will be achieved, but they have famously refused pre-negotiation. We have no intention of having pre-negotiations with the Government; we understand why they, quite rightly, would not want to pre-negotiate any aspect of independence, which would seem like they were conceding the result, but they should, for goodness’ sake, sit round a table and at least discuss the issue. Surely, we should try to work together in the spirit of the Edinburgh agreement and to find the best outcome, whether there is a yes vote or a no. It is surely in the Government’s interests to sit down with the Scottish Government to work out what would happen to their weapons system if the Scottish people decided to vote yes and wanted rid of the whole thing.
Pamela Nash
The UK Government asserted only quite recently that they would not conduct those negotiations. Did the Scottish Government request talks before that?
Pete Wishart
We have consistently told the Government—not just on Trident, but on a number of other issues—that we need to discuss round the table what will happen in the event of a yes vote for Scottish independence.
Mr Reid
The hon. Gentleman wants the UK Government to sit down with him, but the work force at Faslane and Coulport want the SNP to sit down with them and to tell them what jobs there will be after independence. When the debate finishes, will he sit down with representatives of the work force at Faslane and tell them the SNP’s plans for it?
Pete Wishart
They will be negotiating not with me but with someone further up the pay scale. Today, I have heard some of the evidence presented in the Scottish Affairs Committee, and it would be an absolute pleasure and joy to sit down with the trade union representatives for Faslane to describe and explain our ambitions for Faslane. We have clear and ambitious projects for a conventional base at Faslane. We will try to reassure the work force and to make sure they understand what we are trying to achieve, instead of being told some of the myths we have heard today.
Gemma Doyle
I am disappointed the SNP defence spokesperson is not here. I think this is the second debate on Trident he has been absent from. When I challenged him on this issue, he said we could not have negotiations until after Scotland had taken its decision. What exactly is the SNP’s policy?
Pete Wishart
We want to do what was set out in the Edinburgh agreement, with both Governments planning for the outcome so that we achieve the best possible result for a yes or no vote. We will enter the negotiations with the best possible intent, and we will hope for the best possible outcome. All we are trying to do now is encourage the UK Government to approach the discussions on the same basis. So far, they have refused to do so.
It is nice to have the hon. Lady here, but where, for goodness’ sake, is the shadow Defence Secretary? He gave a rambling interview the other morning. When he was challenged about Labour policy on nuclear weapons, he said:
“We’re not a unilateralist party. I mean, that happened in the ’80s, that was a flirtation with surrealism. We’re not a unilateralist party and we’re not going to become a unilateralist party.”
He added:
“We’re in favour of the UK retaining a nuclear capability”.
The Labour party is totally committed to remaining a nuclear party; it will renew Trident, and it will probably replace it like for like—that is what we have with the Labour party.
I have no idea what the report is intended to achieve. The rather silly Scottish Affairs Committee set out to blow a hole in the yes campaign’s ambitions for Trident, but all it has done is to suggest how easy those ambitions are to achieve—thank you, Scottish Affairs Committee. To be clear, the Committee is one of those strange, dysfunctional Committees; it is a really bizarre concoction just now. It is composed exclusively of Unionists, and it produces reports for Unionist consumption.
Pamela Nash
The hon. Gentleman is being very generous with his time. I am a proud member of the Scottish Affairs Committee. There is an SNP member, but, unfortunately, she has not taken her seat for quite some time. Why is she still missing in action? If he is concerned that the Committee is made up only of members of Unionist parties, he might like to take her seat.
Pete Wishart
I think the hon. Lady knows exactly why we are not taking our place on the Committee. We will not take up that place as long as the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) remains in the Chair. Given the way our female member of the Committee was treated, we will not take up that place. The place is available, and we will come back to it, but not as long as the hon. Gentleman is in the Chair.
Pete Wishart
No, I am not discussing this any further with the hon. Gentleman, if he does not mind.
The Scottish Affairs Committee is the most bitterly partisan parliamentary Committee anywhere in the UK. Outside Unionist circles, it has lost any credibility it had. I was a member of the Committee, as was my hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Mr Weir). We served under distinguished Chairs—in my case, Mohammad Sarwar. The Committee produced reasonable reports, which were accepted across the political spectrum—but no more. A Committee that cannot even bring itself to say the word that will go on the independence ballot does not deserve the time, effort or credibility it thinks it should have.
What did the report actually say? This is really good. The Committee found out how easy it would be to get rid of nuclear weapons in an independent Scotland. The Chairman even went as far as to suggest that Scotland could be disarmed in a matter of days. The missiles and submarines could be discharged in a matter of two years. That is music to the ears of all of us who have campaigned so long and so hard for our nation to be free of nuclear weapons. The Scottish Affairs Committee did a fantastic job by telling us how easy it would be, although given its partisan approach, I have no idea why it decided to do so. I do not know whether any of its members are still to speak, but if they do, they must tell us why they produced a report suggesting that it would be so easy to get rid of Trident from Scotland.
The Committee also tried to suggest what the rest of the United Kingdom might want to do, and presented a few options—perhaps even a few sensible ones. Were the UK Government grateful or happy at that? Not a bit of it. The response totally ignored all the suggestions and proposals. The Government refused to look at anything. They were not even prepared to consider the suggestions of the Scottish Affairs Committee. What a waste of time. The UK Government must get over their self-defeating, almost petulant and childish, behaviour. They should sit at the table with the Scottish Government for talks about what they would do to get rid of Trident when we vote yes in next year’s independence referendum.
We now know that only a yes vote in the referendum will get rid of Trident. The Tories, of course, are committed to Trident. They want to spend £100 billion renewing it. The Liberals—I am, as usual, not so sure about them. They are conducting some sort of review. The hon. Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey) did some fantastic work on it, and it is now in the hands of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. We have no idea, as usual, what the Liberals intend to do. I think theirs is a unilateralist party.
Pete Wishart
No, it is not. I think they are against nuclear weapons: it is just that they quite like Trident. That is the Liberals, anyway: we will leave that aside.
Mike Crockart (Edinburgh West) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman has been speaking for 11 minutes. Will he stop the comedy routine and get back to the substance of the debate? Many people in Scotland are waiting to hear what plans the SNP has for when Trident is moved out—in a matter of days after independence, as now seems to be the intention. When will he get to that detail?
Pete Wishart
As usual, it is only from the Scottish National party that opposition to what is proposed will be heard. The hon. Gentleman suggests that I should stick to my script, although no one else who has taken part in the debate has been anywhere close to doing that, which is slightly ridiculous.
The Labour party would replace Trident, like for like.
Pete Wishart
I have been speaking for 11 minutes, as the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart) said, and want to allow others to speak.
We now know that the Labour party will continue to be committed to Trident, so the only way to get rid of nuclear weapons from Scotland, and clear us of that scourge—that immoral weapon of mass destruction—is to vote yes in the independence referendum.
Pete Wishart
I have given way to the hon. Gentleman twice already.
A yes vote would get rid of a weapon of mass destruction, and we are not allowed to keep it anyway. If we were to become a new nation after independence, as the no campaigners claim we would, we would not be able to keep nuclear weapons under the non-proliferation treaty. New nations are not allowed to host nuclear weapons, so it would be illegal under international law for us to have them. We would have to get rid of them and it would be up to the UK how to deal with that.
Scotland wants rid of nuclear weapons. As my hon. Friend the Member for Angus put it, even Scotland’s Westminster MPs want rid of Trident. Not long ago, in 2007, 33 voted against Trident and 22 voted for it. They are in good company, because the majority of people in Scotland want rid of it, as do the Churches and the trade unions. Every part of civic society supports the notion that we must get rid of that weapon of mass destruction. That is why I say that Trident will be an iconic issue in the referendum—because so many people in Scotland oppose it.
Pete Wishart
I cannot give way, because more hon. Members want to speak.
Trident is a system for the Brezhnevs of the world, not the bin Ladens. It is for another age, and people understand that. Yet the Government will spend up to £100 billion on renewing it. Can we believe that? In a triple-dip recession—a time of austerity, the bedroom tax and hard living for most of our constituents—they are prepared to spend £100 billion on the renewal of Trident. That is an appalling decision for any Government. Scotland’s share of the upkeep alone is £163 million, and there is so much more that we could do with that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Angus said. Faslane will have a fantastic future as a conventional naval base. As an independent country we will be able to respond to our own defence needs.
Pete Wishart
I cannot give way. I am just finishing. We have our own defence needs and strategic requirements and the Scottish people have a fantastic opportunity to rid themselves of an evil weapon. If they want Trident out, they should vote yes to Scottish independence. The case is already overwhelming and compelling. The ability to rid Scotland of such an evil weapon of mass destruction helps that case.
Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson), the Chairman of the Scottish Affairs Committee, of which I am a member, on securing the debate.
Scotland plays an essential and pivotal role in the defence of the United Kingdom, and I welcome the opportunity to speak on one of the most important impacts of the referendum debate: the future of the Trident nuclear deterrent in a separate Scotland. It is no secret that I am an advocate of the decommissioning of all nuclear weapons, lock, stock and barrel, regardless of where they are sited—in Scotland, the UK or anywhere else. Indeed, I believe that nuclear disarmament should not just stop at Carlisle and Berwick-upon-Tweed, as the Scottish nationalists would have it. However, the removal of Trident from the Clyde, if that is the proposition, needs to be considered extremely carefully, with a full examination of all the implications and exploration of the alternatives. I therefore welcome the report as a significant contribution to that debate. Rather than putting up barriers and creating false divisions, as the nationalists constantly do, we all need to work together and play an active and constructive role in an international effort to achieve a world free from nuclear weapons.
The UK is a proud and prominent signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Its three pillars must continue to be the prism for our nuclear policy: non-proliferation, disarmament and the facilitation of the peaceful use of nuclear technology. I also believe that the formal response from the Scottish Government is not a meaningful contribution to the debate, and that many people throughout Scotland and the rest of the UK do not welcome it. If the SNP were to insist on the removal of Trident from Scottish territory by the “speediest safest transition”, as it says, any armed submarine on patrol would be recalled and, in effect, the UK would at that point no longer be able to maintain its nuclear defence capacity. The continuous at-sea deterrent would stop and it is not clear how quickly the UK could restore it, if that was the choice.
The SNP has claimed that the panacea for the vacuum that would be created through the removal of Trident from Faslane and Coulport would be the basing of conventional naval forces there. However, moving nuclear weapons from the Clyde after Scottish separation would be an enormous exercise costing billions of pounds and thousands of jobs. The Faslane site employs 6,700 military and civilian workers, with that figure due to rise to 8,200 by 2022. Of course, there is also a multiplier effect, across the west of Scotland and beyond. It is therefore for the Scottish Government to explain how the quality and quantity of such jobs would be matched if Trident were relocated. I do not think that the speeches of the hon. Members for Angus (Mr Weir) and for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) put any meat on the bones in that respect.
If a newly separate Scotland insisted on the removal of Trident from Faslane and the UK were forced into developing a new base at great expense, one would assume that the associated costs would be included in the separation negotiations. In that event, one would imagine the difficulty, both practically and politically, for a UK Government trying to establish facilities suitable for storing nuclear weapons and home-porting the Trident fleet in England or Wales.
I am concerned that this particular aspect of the debate is being sidelined. It is hard to find any clarity on an important issue for the people of Scotland and the rest of the UK. The Scottish Government need to be more open with the Scottish people on this matter and, in particular, the affected work force.
It has been mentioned that in a sitting of the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs this morning, we took evidence from the unions representing the work force on the Clyde. From their responses to our questions, it was abundantly clear that there is a distinct lack of information being provided to them by the SNP on what would happen to Faslane and Coulport in the event of a yes vote in the pending referendum. Despite what was said earlier by members of the Scottish National party, it was reported to us today that November will be the earliest opportunity for the work force to get some answers, perhaps, to their legitimate questions and concerns. The work force and, indeed, the people of Scotland must be able to make the best possible informed choice and be fully aware of the implications of that choice, so the SNP cannot continue to duck this issue.
Perhaps the Minister can confirm what discussions the devolved Administration in Scotland have had with the UK Government and the Ministry of Defence on the implications and additional costs of a separate Scottish state removing Trident and establishing a new naval base, post-separation. In particular, I should like a response about whether he accepts the view that Trident warheads could be deactivated in a matter of days and that the nuclear warheads, missiles and submarines could be removed from Scotland within 24 months, and whether this timetable would constitute the “speediest safe transition” of nuclear weapons from Scotland.
It is clear from the evidence that Scotland could not carry out this process by itself—the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire admitted that earlier—as all handling and transport of the warheads would have to be carried out by specialist staff from the UK. That would require the fullest possible co-operation between the Scottish and UK Governments.
The SNP has said that once an independent Government signed up to non-proliferation treaty rules, Britain’s submarine-based nuclear deterrent at Faslane and Coulport would have to leave Scotland “as quickly as possible”. Immediate removal could mean leaving the rest of the UK without use of its submarines for up to 20 years while a new base was found. Clearly, this is an absurd and unsustainable position.
I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to offer during this debate, and, perhaps more important, what the SNP has to say by way of facts and figures, not the usual assertions and myths that we have heard once again this afternoon. The people of Scotland deserve to know what they will be voting for in 2014. The issue of Trident is too important to ignore.
Sir Nick Harvey (North Devon) (LD)
I congratulate the Committee, both on its inquiry and its report and on the manner in which its Chairman introduced its report, in which the prospects of relocating the nuclear deterrent to another base somewhere else in the UK are referred to as
“highly problematic, very expensive, and fraught with political difficulties.”
If memory serves me correctly, that phrase was part of my brief when I gave evidence to the Committee. The civil service was on fine form that day in preparing that brief, giving such a masterly understatement of what this would entail.
Anyone who has visited Faslane—I guess that most hon. Members in this Chamber will have done so at some point—will see that if we were establishing facilities of the sort that we have there, nature could scarcely have provided a more perfect setting in which to do so. Indeed, anyone who goes there will be struck by the tranquillity of it all, which is, of course, the legacy of the nuclear deterrent’s having been there for 50 years and little other development having taken place. When we say cheerfully that there are alternatives to which we could now turn—
Sir Nick Harvey
I was making the point before the Division that Faslane is ideally suited to its purpose. Back in the 1950s, alternative sites were investigated, including Falmouth, which has one of the largest harbours in the world, and Milford Haven, but we cannot turn back the clock and consider how Falmouth and Milford Haven were 50 years ago. The fact is that a great deal of development has happened in both since, and some of it is completely incompatible with a nuclear facility.
If another site were chosen, the cost would not be simply the massive cost of making a nuclear installation. My colleague the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire (Peter Luff) also gave evidence to the Committee, pointing out that making a site meet the standards for nuclear safety and hardening it in defence terms would multiply costs far above the requirements of normal construction. On top of all that would be compensation, restoration and all sorts of other attendant costs from nearby facilities and developments.
That was what led me to tell the Committee that the costs would be gargantuan. I think that they are basically unquantifiable—in all honesty, I have no idea what they would be—but if we are going to spend about £25 billion on the capital costs of renewing Trident, I would not be in the least surprised to see the same sum spent all over again if anybody were seriously to undertake the fraught project of relocation to another site. In a practical sense, it is all quite unnecessary, and it would take an enormous length of time. I do not see anything incredible about the estimates of 20 years.
If it does come about, and if the United Kingdom elects a Government in 2015 who wish to go ahead with the nuclear deterrent for a further generation, it would be one of the biggest items—if not the single biggest—on the table in the negotiation that would have to take place between London and Edinburgh in the aftermath of a referendum vote for independence. The Scottish Government would likely take the view, “This will all have to be paid for by the United Kingdom Government.” I would not expect them to write cheques for it. However, if the residual UK Government found themselves facing a massive bill of many billions of pounds for relocating the nuclear deterrent, they would have that many billions fewer in their back pocket for discussing the rest of the things on the table.
That brings us to the critical point that we have not heard from the proposers of Scottish independence what the defence policy of an independent Scotland would be. The United Kingdom, even denuded of 8.5% of its population and taxpayers, would continue to have global interests, which its armed forces are there to defend. It would continue to have a broad spectrum of capability with which to defend those interests, and it would continue to have the critical mass necessary to sustain a variety of equipment fleets, but the defence force of an independent Scotland would have neither those global interests nor that global reach.
Most critically, Scotland would not have the sheer mass with which it could possibly hope to sustain fleets of warships or fighter jets. We have heard that Faslane would continue to host submarines. What on earth would an independent Scottish force want with submarines? The purpose of submarines is to protect the nuclear deterrent, the aircraft carriers and warships. If Scotland is not going to have any of those things, why the dickens would it need any submarines at all?
The truth of the matter is that an independent Scotland would need defence forces. It would be about homeland security. If Scotland was forward-leaning in its global interests, it would perhaps be willing, like the Republic of Ireland, to volunteer troops to international peacekeeping operations. However, that is very different from taking the existing United Kingdom armed forces and slicing 8.5% from them.
Mr Robathan
Does my hon. Friend therefore agree with John Swinney’s assumption in this not very secret document that the defence budget of an independent Scotland would have to be a great deal reduced in proportion to what it is now as a percentage of the UK defence budget?
Sir Nick Harvey
I am certain that the defence budget would be much smaller, given the other aspirations articulated for an independent Scotland, but I am absolutely clear that a force proportionate to the size of the population and the economy would not have fast jets; what on earth would it do with them? That will leave questions in a lot of mouths. It would not have warships. It would not have submarines. It would need offshore patrol vessels, some sort of aerial offshore patrol and helicopters, but it would not need the spectrum of things that the United Kingdom armed forces have. It would be a different beast altogether.
The fact of the matter is that Faslane, in its entirety, taking the nuclear deterrent, the non-nuclear submarines and the entire supply and support chain, is Scotland’s largest single employment site. As far as I can see, there would be virtually nothing there if we took the site away from Faslane. There would be a small requirement for a navy, but that would be a strange place to put it, as we heard earlier. The constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid) would therefore be looking at ruination. Work such as that on the future of Barrow and elsewhere would need to be done.
No one should be in any doubt that this issue is a massive part of the independence debate. The consequences for Scotland need to be assessed and analysed carefully, and the headache presented to a UK Government who wished to continue the nuclear deterrent would be immense. Finally, we should not assume that Scottish independence is to be equated with the SNP ruling for ever in Edinburgh. It might well be that an election would return a Scottish Government of a completely different political hue, and some of the issues would then start looking very different.
Pamela Nash (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab)
The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) hoped that another member of the Scottish Affairs Committee would speak, because he had asked why our report made it clear that it would be possible to remove nuclear weapons from Scotland in only days. To be clear, the report stated that removing them was possible, but that it would be at the expense of the entire UK not having a nuclear deterrent and of damaging the NATO deterrent.
A lot of the issues in the report have been covered in the debate today, so I will restrict my comments in the little time we have left to the effect on our international relationships and in particular our membership of NATO. I am disappointed at the lack of clarity from the SNP Members present today about how Trident would be removed and the effect that that would have.
It almost goes without saying that the first responsibility of any Government is the defence of their nation. That, however, does not seem to be a priority for the SNP Government in Edinburgh, nor does the entire A4 page on defence policy published last year inspire any confidence that defence is a top priority among their aspirations for a separate Scotland. Their only priority seems to be to win a referendum in 2014. That is why they ditched a long-held opposition to NATO. The SNP held a view for 60 years, but dropped it at one meeting in a desperate attempt to fool public opinion, which has consistently shown popular support for Scotland’s membership of NATO.
The organisation was born at the end of the second world war and the start of the cold war, and many countries around the world are still queuing up for membership. The reason for the length of that queue is obvious: we are proud of being part of NATO, and membership is not only a hoop to be jumped through. NATO membership has allowed us, as a small country, to contribute to preventing the slaughter of Muslims in Kosovo and Bosnia, to protecting women and children in Afghanistan from the Taliban and to securing our safety in the UK. NATO has played a vital role in humanitarian relief, helping after the Pakistan earthquake and Hurricane Katrina.
It is vital for us to be part of NATO and to contribute adequately to the alliance. It is important to show that not only Scotland but Britain and Europe are part of NATO. It exists for a reason. Simply put, we might not be having this debate today were we not a member of NATO. The SNP wants to send Scotland’s nuclear deterrent a few hundred miles down the road so that it can say that it opposes nuclear weapons, because it believes that to be popular. The policy might help the SNP to win the vote in 2014. Clearly, the goal is never what is the best policy for Scotland but what will help win the referendum.
NATO is clear about its position on nuclear weapons. Its strategic concept states:
“As long as nuclear weapons exist, NATO will remain a nuclear alliance.”
The SNP has been arguing the point. It wants to join the club but it has been arguing against the rules before even being granted membership. The SNP likes to have a grand, international, catch-all comparison in its desperate attempts to justify its assertions. None of us has yet forgotten the arc of prosperity, which has already been mentioned today. The SNP has quoted Norway as a country with an anti-nuclear stance that is still a member of NATO, but forgets that the country was a founding member of NATO. It also chooses to ignore the fact that Norway has mandatory military service. Denmark, too, is often quoted, but again the SNP ignores its historical relationship with NATO as a founding member and the fact that the country supports the holding of nuclear weapons through membership. I have not yet heard exactly how the SNP has come to the position of wanting the protection of nuclear weapons while not being willing to have them in its own backyard. There is no precedent for a country that has kicked out a nuclear deterrent to join NATO. Canada and Greece were mentioned, but they were opposed to US weapons on their soil, and the two positions are simply not comparable.
An SNP alternative for a separate Scotland might be to follow Belarus and Kazakhstan into the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, which includes countries that formerly had nuclear weapons on their soil. Frankly, a separate Scotland is more likely to be granted membership of the CSTO than of NATO. NATO would not let in a country that had removed nuclear weapons quickly, causing not only Scotland but the entire UK not to have a nuclear deterrent and reducing the nuclear deterrent capability of NATO as a whole. No countries in NATO have got rid of their nuclear weapons.
More importantly, on joining NATO a separate Scotland might be obliged to sign up to everything that NATO requires of its members, including allowing nuclear weapons in their waters, and article 5 of the treaty, which states that an attack on one member of the alliance is an attack on all members and will be acted on, and not only with UN sanctions as the SNP put forward in its defence document. It is not possible only to pursue a pick-and-mix approach, as the SNP regularly asserts. Regardless of that, I have seen no evidence that the SNP has discussed the options with NATO. Has the Minister had any discussions with NATO about the possibilities of a separate Scotland joining? What effect on Scotland and the UK’s membership would there be if an SNP Government in a separate Scotland disarmed the UK of its nuclear capability? Does the Minister have any evidence for the Scottish Government having asked NATO about the possibility of a separate Scotland joining?
When countries should be pulling together to face the new challenges of a fast-changing world, the SNP logic is to break up Britain and to gamble with Scotland and the UK’s security and their membership of NATO. We need the SNP to be open and honest about the defence of Scotland if it breaks away from the rest of the UK. The SNP needs to acknowledge the facts and choose evidence over ideology, as the Scottish people have the right to make an informed decision in 2014. They need to know that, while other countries are queuing up to join NATO, the only mainstream party in the UK that wants to risk losing membership of the alliance is the SNP. That would not be in the interests of the people of Scotland or of the United Kingdom.
May I just add, Mr Rosindell, that I hope you will forgive me for making a sharp exit, as I have the Adjournment debate in the main Chamber this evening? Missing one Adjournment debate in a year might be seen as an unfortunate error, but missing two would be seen as careless.
Gemma Doyle (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Rosindell. I am grateful to have the opportunity to contribute to this important debate and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Pamela Nash), who made an important contribution, bringing the perspective of the vital international context to our discussions. As she said, the defence and security of any nation or state is the key responsibility of a Government.
Debates on the future of the nuclear deterrent have been and will continue to be an important aspect of the referendum discussions that are already well under way throughout Scotland, and indeed the rest of the UK. The significance of the issue has been demonstrated by the decision of the Scottish Affairs Committee to focus one of its inquiries fully on the subject. Furthermore, we have Members from throughout the rest of the UK attending the debate today, which shows how important it is. The report, which I read with interest, raises a number of key points about the deterrent and points out possible outcomes and situations that might arise. The facts about the available options for the future of the deterrent, were Scotland to leave the UK, leave no one feeling particularly satisfied with any of the potential outcomes.
The UK’s nuclear deterrent has been the cornerstone of our national security for more than half a century, and although the cold war divisions have gone, they have been replaced by new threats. We support retention of the minimum, credible, independent nuclear deterrent. The last Parliament voted to proceed with the initial stages of renewal, and we support that decision, although I am aware that some hon. Members here today voted in a different way in Parliament.
We eagerly await the outcome of the Lib Dem alternatives review. I confirm that the comments attributed to my right hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy), the shadow Secretary of State, and to me in this debate are not the case. I stated clearly that we had not committed to like-for-like renewal of Trident, which is why we are awaiting the outcome of the alternatives review. Our position has been clear throughout. If the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) does not believe me, CND and Labour CND have tweeted that I said that here today. If he will not take my word, perhaps he will take their word. I do not often rely on them for comments.
Pete Wishart
Will the hon. Lady clarify Labour’s position on the nuclear deterrent? What is its trend of thinking? Will a Labour Government renew Trident or not ?
Gemma Doyle
I am happy to repeat that as often as the hon. Gentleman wants, but I suspect that colleagues would like me to move on. I have said again and again that we are awaiting the outcome of the alternatives review and, as I have just said, we are committed to retaining a minimum, independent, credible, alternative deterrent. Before deciding how that will be provided, we await the review, as do all other parties in Parliament, and we will then see what it says. I have told the hon. Gentleman this about four times, and I hope that he now understands the position.
I am a little concerned about progress on the review. I understand that the Royal Navy has not been asked for its opinion, and it should be. I believe that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who represents Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey and who is leading the review, does not even have a pass for the Ministry of Defence building, so I am not sure what work is ongoing, but everyone is eagerly awaiting it.
We absolutely support a policy of multilateral disarmament, and like everyone who has spoken here today, I want a world free of nuclear weapons. The last Labour Government made progress in reducing the number of warheads from 300 to 160 just before the 2010 election.
The Committee outlined a number of alternative possibilities for the deterrent’s future, and it is clear that if the people of Scotland vote to break off from the rest of the UK, a separate Scotland will have to decide, in negotiation with the UK Government, the future of the nuclear deterrent, whoever the Government of a newly separate Scotland are. I do not presume, as the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire did, that that will be an SNP Government. The nationalists have, as with all other issues, made a series of assertions without any basis, so it falls to us to consider the reality.
The Committee considered that if the Government of a newly separate Scotland decided that they no longer wanted to house the nuclear deterrent or, conversely, if the Government of the remaining UK decided they did not want to base the capability in a foreign country, one option might be for the deterrent to be decommissioned and taken out of service. However, that does not seem likely because the UK Government are committed to retaining a nuclear deterrent.
The Committee also looked at the options for the short-term relocation of Trident, and specifically how the UK’s allies might be involved in providing a temporary base. One option would be to work with the USA at its submarine base in Georgia, but, as the Committee noted, questions would probably arise about the perceived independence of the capability. For most people, independence is a key desire behind having a nuclear deterrent, and the same argument might be applied to the Committee’s consideration of stationing the deterrent in France. Although it is closer and the geography would make things easier, there might be problem with finding sufficient space to house it.
A more likely outcome is that the UK Government would seek to relocate the capability elsewhere in the UK. Hon. Members will be aware from the Committee’s report that relocation of the deterrent is not a simple process. Apart from identification of an alternative site and the issues of physical relocation, the exercise would be extremely expensive. Some sources have suggested that it could cost £20 billion to £25 billion. The previous Minister for the Armed Forces made it clear that the cost would dwarf the £3.5 billion cost of recent upgrade work at Faslane.
I have visited the naval base on the Clyde. Any other hon. Members who have done so will know that it is akin to a small town with a range of facilities and accommodation, as well as the necessary equipment and infrastructure to provide a centre for our submarines.
Estimates that the deterrent will remain in Scotland for anything up to 20 years while a new base is developed raise serious questions, which need to be addressed and which cast significant doubt on the nationalists’ view that voting for separation equals unilateral disarmament. I am far from convinced that even unilateralists would see that as a victory, and comments during the debate today back that up. I believe in multilateral disarmament, and there would not be a victory for anyone in simply moving the nuclear capability deterrent 165 miles south. Surely our interests are best served by working internationally with our allies, partners and other countries towards multilateral disarmament.
The UK is committed to retaining a deterrent, so the most likely outcome is relocation to elsewhere in the UK. That would mean removal of Faslane and with it thousands of jobs on the base and in our wider industry, the future of which is far from certain under these plans. The report states:
“Several witnesses in our inquiry commented on the vacuum of discussion on how separation would affect defence in Scotland”.
More than one major defence employer in Scotland has recently expressed similar concerns to me that there is so little detail about the nationalists’ plans for separation and defence in a separate Scotland that it is extremely difficult seriously to engage in any way with the question of what separation would mean for defence and the defence industry in Scotland. That is a fair comment.
Most sensible people would say that if the case has not been made and information is not there, the answer must be no. The nationalists are certainly failing to put any meat on the bones of their randomised top-line numbers. I can give them some numbers: 6,500 jobs at the naval base, about half and half military and civilian, and a conservative estimate of 4,500 jobs supported throughout the wider economy with £270 million pumped into the Scottish economy every year. That is what the nationalists want to scrap. The shop stewards are right to demand answers. They deserve to have the information to give to their members so that we can have a proper discussion.
The nationalists want to assure us that when they have told the Royal Navy to take all its submarines, nuclear-armed and nuclear-powered, out of Scottish waters, nothing will change at Faslane and Coulport. I have even heard a west of Scotland MSP claim that more people will be employed at Faslane after separation. I hope that they are beginning to realise how ridiculous their claims are, because they are insulting my constituents. The nationalists should make no mistake. Without the Vanguard subs, there will be no Faslane and no jobs, but a seriously wounded local economy.
When the Navy has gone, the civilian jobs will go, because they support the Navy. An employer to whom I spoke recently acknowledged that removal of Faslane would mean starting with a blank sheet of paper. It would not mean, as the SNP want to say, that jobs will be protected.
The SNP says that it would have a joint service headquarters as well as basing the Scottish navy at Faslane, but they will not give us any detail. I watched the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire nodding vigorously as Members challenged him, asking him very politely to provide information in his speech, but he gave not one jot of detail. There was nothing at all. Even the retired Lieutenant-Colonel Stuart Crawford, whom I would describe—I hope I am not misrepresenting him—as an independent military expert who is sympathetic to the idea of independence, stated that the maximum number of jobs that he could see Faslane supporting would be around 1,000 to 1,500. That is his opinion, not mine.
Other commentators have asked, as did my constituency neighbour,the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid), that if the primary job of the Scottish navy was to protect the oil platforms, what sense would it make to base the naval capability on the west coast of Scotland? Do not get me wrong—I will always argue for that, no matter what situation we are in, but we have to look at the facts here. It is worth noting that the job of protecting the oil platforms is currently done by non-militarised agencies, so I am not sure how those people would feel about their jobs being shunted, so that Salmond’s navy could come in to take over.
Today is a very significant day in the referendum campaign because public scrutiny is being given to a leaked Scottish Government Cabinet document, which the Minister has referred to. It reveals the truth about the nationalists’ spending plans in a separate Scotland. It is worth looking at exactly what it says. On defence, the Scottish Finance Secretary, John Swinney, wrote:
“Historically defence spending in Scotland has been lower than Scotland’s population share of the UK defence budget.”
In saying that, he demonstrates that he, like his colleagues, does not understand that spending on overseas operations cannot be attributed to various parts of the regions and nations of the UK. He continues:
“I have made clear to the Defence Workstream that a much lower budget must be assumed.”
I hope that the bluster will now stop. There will be less money, not more, spent in a separate Scotland on defence.
I am just checking how long I have been speaking for—I could go on, but I will draw my comments to a close, so that the Minister has enough time to sum up. All I would say in conclusion is that I do not see how anybody can be particularly happy or satisfied with the outcome of the possibilities for the deterrent—[Interruption.] I have already told the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire what our position is, so he can pipe down, quite honestly. I do not see how anyone can be satisfied with the outcomes for what would happen to the deterrent in a separate Scotland. It is highly unlikely that the situation would lead to unilateral disarmament, and it is highly likely that thousands of jobs on the west coast of Scotland would be lost. That is what the nationalists are arguing for today.
The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr Andrew Robathan)
It is a joy to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell, especially since we had such happy days together in the Whips Office in opposition.
We have had a good debate. I find myself in an unusual situation. Normally, I face serried ranks of Labour MPs who throw metaphorical bricks at me. Often, I have serried ranks behind me throwing similar metaphorical bricks, but today, we have been remarkably consensual, pace the two hon. Gentlemen from the SNP. I have found it an interesting, if rather one-sided, debate.
I will make my personal views known. I am an Englishman. My father was born in Wales, and therefore, I have Welsh ancestry. I am a Conservative MP, self-evidently, and some commentators, from time to time, suggest that the Conservatives should wish to see Scotland leave the United Kingdom, because that would be to the Conservatives’ benefit electorally. May I say that I and the Government disagree entirely with that? I think that all the peoples—including the Scots—in the United Kingdom would be very much poorer to see the end of the United Kingdom. I, and the Government, would very much regret a victory for the siren voices of small-minded separatism in the referendum next year.
The first duty of Government is defence of the realm, to ensure the security of the nation, its people and its interests. The Government are unwaveringly committed to that duty. Consequently, like all post-war Governments—Labour, Conservative and now the coalition—we regard a nuclear deterrent as an essential contribution to our security. The strategic defence and security review of 2010 makes it clear that the nuclear deterrent provides the ultimate guarantee of our national security against the most extreme risks from nuclear-armed adversaries.
The recent test by North Korea of a nuclear device, in defiance of the international community and the good examples that many in the international community show, as well as the continuing uncertainties over Iran’s nuclear programme, underline the fact that we continue to live in a dangerous world, in which we have little ability to predict what threats we may face in future. As long as the threat of nuclear proliferation continues, the Government simply will not gamble with the security of future generations of British people.
This Government, in line with our predecessors, are firmly committed to multilateral disarmament. Personally, I wish to see total nuclear disarmament, but it has to be multilateral, not unilateral. When I was in the Army—as I was for many years—I considered the prospect of a nuclear conflict so horrific that it would have meant that there was no point in fighting on any more.
Pete Wishart
The Minister says that he is interested in multilateral disarmament, but why are the UK Government perhaps the only Government in the world who are investing in unilateral nuclear rearmament, with Trident renewal?
Mr Robathan
The hon. Gentleman, if I might say so, reveals a certain ignorance, as the point is that weaponry has to be kept up to date. It is rather like saying, “Could we not use a one-rupee jezail when fighting in Afghanistan?” I am afraid that those were the days of Kipling, and while the Afghans may have been very accurate, we prefer to use modern weaponry.
The UK has an excellent record in fulfilling its disarmament obligations—as the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle) said, in relation to the previous Government—under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, as demonstrated by the latest round of stockpile reductions that we announced in the strategic defence and security review. We probably have the smallest nuclear force of the recognised nuclear weapon states and, uniquely, the UK relies on a single platform, a single weapon system and single warhead design for the delivery of its nuclear deterrent.
However, we continue to work to create a safer and more stable world in which the UK and others can relinquish their nuclear weapons, but we are not there yet. Therefore, nuclear arsenals remain, as does the danger of further proliferation, especially in regions of instability and tension, so we believe that a nuclear deterrent is likely to remain an important element of our national security. Given the uncertainties of the international environment, it would be folly to pursue a policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament. As President Obama said in Prague in 2009, the threat of nuclear war has gone down, but the threat of nuclear attack has gone up.
The UK’s nuclear weapon capability is designed to deter and thereby prevent blackmail and acts of aggression against our vital interests that cannot be countered by other means. It also supports collective security, through NATO, for the Euro-Atlantic area. The UK Government have thus committed to maintain the strategic nuclear deterrent and to continue with the programme to renew it as debated and approved by a significant majority in Parliament in March 2007.
The Government’s policy is that the Vanguard class submarines will be replaced at the end of their lives, in the late 2020s and early 2030s, by a successor submarine, again carrying the Trident missile, subject to main gate investment approval due in 2016. The Government are committed to continuous at-sea deterrence. In times of tensions or crisis, such a posture neither escalates nor de-escalates matters and maximises political freedom of manoeuvre. A submarine-launched ballistic missile system offers invulnerability, range and endurance. All promote the credibility of that deterrent and provide the ultimate safeguard for our national security. I pay tribute to the crews of our submarines and their families, and all the men and women, both military and civilian—including at Faslane—engaged in Operation Relentless, our country’s most enduring current operation, which has been in place for nearly 45 years. I thank them—Scots, English, Irish and Welsh—for their unwavering dedication.
The UK Government’s position on the referendum on Scottish separation is clear: Scotland benefits from being part of the UK and the UK benefits from having Scotland within it. Scotland has played an indispensable role in the development and history of the multi-nation UK. As a result, the UK has developed and flourished, and its constitution, laws and institutions underpin one of the most successful partnerships of nations in history.
If the result of the referendum on Scottish separation were to lead to the current situation being challenged, other options would have to be considered. It would be an enormous challenge to reproduce the facilities that we have at Faslane elsewhere, as we have heard, and any alternative solution would come at huge cost. It is impossible to estimate how much that would be, as it would depend on many factors, including time scales and the precise scope of the facilities that might be required, but it would cost billions of pounds and take many years.
Let me now make this point about Her Majesty’s Naval Base Clyde. The hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle) represents—[Interruption]. A constituency not far away; the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid) does indeed represent Clyde itself, and Helensburgh, where I went last year. Her Majesty’s Naval Base Clyde underwent a significant investment programme to prepare it for the introduction of the Vanguard-class submarines and the Trident missile system. That programme cost in the region of £3.5 billion at today’s prices, and that built on decades of investment in the base infrastructure and associated housing.
In April 1963, the Civil Lord of the Admiralty, Ian Orr-Ewing, whom I remember and who died only about 15 years ago, informed the House that the operating base for the planned fleet of Resolution-class Polaris ballistic missile submarines needed to be near deep water, to offer easy navigational access and to be a short distance by sea from the associated armament depot. He informed the House that it had been decided that Faslane was the area that was operationally most suitable for the basing of the submarine fleet. My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey) pointed out that it is a perfect site. In this varied United Kingdom, we do not have a better site.
That decision was reviewed in the early 1980s, alongside the decision to introduce the Vanguard-class submarines. It was concluded that the Clyde continued to offer the best location. Nothing has happened since to alter that conclusion. Indeed, the Clyde has been chosen as the submarine centre of specialisation, and all our submarines will be based there by the end of this decade, which brings the additional benefits to the region that have been mentioned.
We have mentioned employment at Her Majesty’s Naval Base Clyde, but I now return to that, because it is the largest employment site in Scotland. The base is a major source of employment for highly skilled workers and a significant contributor to the local economy. The rise in the number of jobs during the next decade accompanies the move to base all royal naval submarines on the Clyde to achieve economies of scale and the greater effectiveness of collocation. That symbiosis of a submarine centre of specialisation and associated contractor and base support is a matter of pride, I would have thought, for the UK, for Faslane and for Scotland.
As the collocation benefits would be required in any alternative location, there would be no question but that the entirety of the submarine enterprise on the Clyde would be relocated if the nuclear deterrent force had to move. It is for those who demand the withdrawal of the Vanguard-class submarines from Faslane to explain how the quality and quantity of employment in the region would be matched if the enterprise had to be relocated.
As the UK Government have no plans to disarm unilaterally, there would inevitably be significant time and cost implications if an independent Scottish Government demanded the withdrawal of the UK deterrent. For reasons that I have already described, the UK Government will not pre-negotiate the departure of Scotland from the UK. Therefore, scenarios mentioned in the Scottish Affairs Committee report under which the UK may negotiate a basing agreement for the deterrent with an independent Scottish Government will not be discussed before to the outcome of the referendum and, God willing, will never need to be discussed.
As was said by the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Pamela Nash), who has just left the Chamber, NATO is a nuclear alliance, and it will remain a nuclear alliance while nuclear weapons remain in existence. NATO’s “Strategic Concept” of 2010 and the “Deterrence and Defence Posture Review” adopted at the NATO summit in Chicago only in May last year make that unambiguously clear. Those documents also make this clear:
“The supreme guarantee of the security of the Allies is provided by the strategic nuclear forces of the Alliance, particularly those of the United States; the independent strategic nuclear forces of the United Kingdom and France, which have a deterrent role of their own, contribute to the overall deterrence and security of the Allies.”
The contribution made by the UK’s nuclear forces is much valued by our NATO allies, and membership of NATO comes with responsibilities. One cannot join NATO and pretend that it is not a nuclear alliance, for it is, and one cannot join NATO and reject the concept of nuclear burden sharing within the alliance.
It is clear to me that a separate Scotland would face difficult choices about its defence arrangements. That would include decisions on the role of its armed forces, what threats it intended to counter and what foreign policy it intended to support—quite a bit of work required there, then—its international relationships, including membership of NATO; the resources allocated to defence, which we have just heard about from Mr Swinney; and the future of the defence industry in Scotland.
It is indeed the case that people in Scotland need to know how the Scottish Government propose to provide for the protection and security of Scotland if it separates, God forbid, from the UK. It is the UK Government’s view that whatever choice is made, a separate Scotland would lose significant benefits in this area that are currently delivered by Scotland being part of the United Kingdom. One of those benefits is the security provided by the armed forces of the United Kingdom, including the strategic nuclear deterrent.
Our nuclear deterrent has contributed to both our security and that of our NATO allies since the 1950s, and the continuous at-sea deterrence posture has been the central feature of our deterrence since the late 1960s. As the Trident system has been our sole nuclear weapons system since 1998, our nuclear deterrence posture is now based exclusively on CASD. Although I personally am committed and we as a Government are committed to multilateral disarmament, the circumstances that would justify the relinquishing of our submarine-based deterrent do not prevail and are unlikely to do so in the foreseeable future. For that reason, I reiterate that we have no plans to move the deterrent from Her Majesty’s Naval Base Clyde, which has a bright future not only as the base for all our submarines, but as the UK’s submarine centre of specialisation.
Mr Davidson
With the leave of this House, this has been a very good debate. There has been a very good turnout. I am particularly happy that the Select Committee report seems to have been universally welcomed. That will certainly gladden the members of the Committee and, indeed, the staff who worked with us in its preparation. I particularly enjoyed the fierce attack on the Scottish Affairs Committee that was made by one of the separatists at the same time as they were welcoming the report—no problem there, then.
It is only fair at this stage to make it absolutely clear that the proposal that “The Referendum on Separation for Scotland” would be the wording of the heading for our series of reports was unanimously agreed by the Committee in a meeting at which the SNP was present. The SNP member of the Committee did agree that wording. She subsequently got a row from her colleagues and then produced a press statement, which led to her being rebuked for misbehaviour by the other members of the Committee, but she did agree that wording. It was alleged that we were too hard in rebuking her. Let me make it clear that there were 14 witnesses in that Committee, not one of whom corroborates the version of events given by the SNP. It is worth while just making that point clear.
I will move on, and I hope that the SNP will also move on from the politics of smear and character assassination and stop trying to play the man and not the ball. I am glad that for at least some of the SNP’s contribution, Members engaged in the debate and were prepared to argue on the issues, because I think that the discussions that we have had today have moved the debate forward quite considerably. I think that there is recognition on all sides that the parameters that we have spelt out in our report are universally accepted—that that is the area that the debate will focus on in terms of timing. We have had a clear indication from the SNP about its position in relation to those. It has not been absolutely explicit, but nor, to be fair, have the UK Government yet.
It seems to me that we are now in a position in which, having established, as a result of this report and subsequent discussions, what the alternatives are on timing, we are also pretty clear on where one of the parameters is in terms of jobs. The shop stewards told us earlier today about the 50 years of job security with the United Kingdom. There are 6,700 jobs, rising to 8,200 jobs, with the UK. But with separation, the position is unknown. In those circumstances, we as a Committee will be, on both this occasion and others, drawing attention to what appears to be a complete vacuum of policy from the SNP on the question of defence. That cannot continue. We owe it not only to the people of Scotland, who are going to vote in about October 2014, but to the work force, who require warning of what might happen to their jobs and the ability to plan. We cannot surprise them with a decision one day that something is going to happen the next. If they wish to leave their employment, as a result of cuts coming down the road, to seek a job elsewhere, they need time to prepare. Their children are at school. They need to start deciding whether it is desirable or necessary to find a job somewhere else. Family ties will be disrupted by job losses.
I want to close by saying to the Government that I hope they will also do as much as they can to clarify the position. I saw one of the other Defence Ministers here earlier. I hope that both Ministers will take account of the report we produced on separation shutting shipyards and be clear about their intentions for placing orders for the Type 26 between now and the referendum. If they cannot be clear, or if they wish to say that no orders will be placed before the referendum, they need to indicate what will be done to ensure that yards remain open between now and then. The yards engaged in building aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy are fast running out of work and might not be there to build the Type 26, even if Scotland remains within the United Kingdom, unless they are given fill-in work.
The question is what will happen not only to Faslane and Coulport, which we have heard about today, but to Scotland’s shipyards and, as we intend to show in other reports that the Committee will produce shortly, every other industrial site in Scotland that is connected to defence. All those questions require answering. I hope that I and other members of the Committee and its staff can bring out reports in the future that will be greeted with universal acclaim similar to that which greeted this report, and that we will have similarly fruitful debates.
We are moving towards one of the major decisions to be taken in the life of every Scot here and elsewhere. Full debate is essential. If the separatists wish to have an open debate, they must provide answers. The Committee has identified the areas that require clarification; it is now up to them to fill the gaps. Thank you, Mr Rosindell.
Question put and agreed to.
Written Ministerial Statements
(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill
(11 years, 2 months ago)
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The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Greg Clark)
I have today deposited in the Libraries of both Houses drafts of the following secondary legislation to be made under the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill:
The draft Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Ring-fenced Bodies and Core Activities) Order;
The draft Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Excluded Activities and Prohibitions) Order;
The draft Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Fees and Prescribed International Organisations) Order.
These illustrative drafts are for the benefit of Members in advance of the Second Reading of the Bill. The Government will formally publish a draft of all secondary legislation for public consultation later in the year.
Loan to Ireland
(11 years, 2 months ago)
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The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Greg Clark)
I would like to update the House on the loan to Ireland.
Ireland completed the eighth quarterly review of its International Monetary Fund and European Union programme of financial assistance on 23 January 2013, following which the utilisation period for the sixth instalment of the UK bilateral loan began.
Upon request, the Treasury disbursed the sixth instalment of £403.37 million on 6 March 2013, with a maturity date of 7 September 2020.
The interest rate charged on the loan is calculated as set out in the loan agreement as the UK’s cost of funds plus a service fee of 18 basis points per annum, creating an effective per annum interest rate on this tranche of the loan of 2.312%. The UK more than covers its cost of funds.
The Treasury will provide a further report to Parliament in relation to the bilateral loan as required under the Loans to Ireland Act 2010 as soon as is practicable following the end of the next reporting period, which ends on 31 March 2013.
The Government believe that it is in our national interest that the Irish economy is successful and its banking system is stable. The Government continue to support Ireland’s efforts to improve its economic situation.
Single Payment Scheme
(11 years, 2 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr David Heath)
I made a statement on 6 December 2012, Official Report, column 76WS about payments to farmers in England under the EU common agricultural policy single payment scheme (SPS) for 2012. I informed the House that the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) met its December 2012 target for SPS payments on the first banking day of the payment window.
I can now confirm that RPA met its second performance target more than five weeks ahead of schedule. By 19 February 2013 the agency had paid more than 98.4% of volume and 97.2% of value.
This is the best ever performance on the part of the agency which has now exceeded both of its SPS performance targets as well as meeting its EU benchmark more than four months early. A total of £1.6 billion has now been paid to more than 102,000 English farmers.
The agency has been working to a ministerial commitment to pay 84% of payments by value and 91% of customers by number by 31 December 2012, and 97% of payments and 97% of customers by end March 2013. The EU benchmark is to pay more than 95.238% of the scheme fund value by the end of June.
OFWAT (Repayable Cash Advance)
(11 years, 2 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)
An urgent cash advance of £1.5 million is required to fund Ofwat’s immediate operating cost commitments and prevent default to contractual suppliers while we await Royal Assent of supplementary estimates.
Ofwat is heavily committed currently to a range of major projects that rely on the expert input of a number of specialist suppliers. Without this input Ofwat would be unable to regulate effectively and protect the interests of 52 million consumers in England and Wales. Ofwat contracts with a large number of SMEs and therefore it is in the public interest that we make payment promptly within agreed contractual terms.
Parliamentary approval for additional resources of £3 million was sought in a supplementary estimate for 2012-13 on 13 February for the water services regulation authority. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at £1.5 million will be met by repayable cash advances from the contingencies fund.
Foreign Affairs and General Affairs Councils
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The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs will attend the Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) and I will attend the General Affairs Council (GAC), both on 11 March in Brussels. The Foreign Affairs Council will be chaired by the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Baroness Ashton of Upholland, and the General Affairs Council will be chaired by the Irish presidency.
Russia
Ministers will have a broad discussion on the EU-Russia relationship. Conclusions are not expected. This discussion will provide an opportunity to exchange views on the importance of the EU’s trade relationship with Russia, as well as underlining member states’ concerns on human rights and democratic standards. This discussion will serve as preparation for consideration of the EU’s strategic relationship with Russia at the European Council on 15 March. The FAC discussion will take place ahead of the visit of the Russian Foreign and Defence Ministers to London on 13 March.
Southern Neighbourhood
Ministers will discuss events in Egypt and Tunisia. We believe that the EU should encourage inclusive political transition and protection of human rights. The UK will argue that EU support to these countries needs to be ambitious and well communicated, with clear progress on agreed political and economic reforms matched with further support. We will support an EU observer mission for the Egyptian parliamentary elections.
Ministers will also discuss the current situation in Syria and will be joined over lunch by the United Nations and the Arab League Joint Special Representative for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi.
Japan
The EU-Japan summit will take place on 25 March in Tokyo and Ministers will discuss the EU’s priorities for that summit. Negotiations on the EU-Japan free trade agreement (FTA) and framework agreement, which the UK strongly supports, will be launched at that summit. The EU and Japan will also agree to work together more closely on issues such as the growth agenda, climate change, energy policy and international issues of the day, such as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Iran and Syria.
Iran
This discussion will focus on the recent E3+3 (UK, France, Germany, China, Russia, US) nuclear talks with Iran in Almaty, where a confidence-building measure was put to Iran. We will make it clear that while Iran’s agreement to further meetings is welcome, there is no sign yet of a significant shift in the Iranian position. If Iran makes no progress on addressing our most immediate concerns about its nuclear programme, we will need to tighten existing measures to increase the pressure it faces.
Kenya
Ministers will discuss the conduct and outcome of the elections held on 4 March in Kenya.
General Affairs Council
The 11 March GAC will focus on preparation for the 14-15 March European Council. The European Council agenda has two items that the GAC will consider: Economic policy and external relations (in conjunction with the FAC).
After the plenary session there will be a meeting with the President of the European Council, Herman van Rompuy. We expect this to focus on political directions for the European semester and European monetary union.
14-15 March European Council preparation
The economic policy agenda item covers the European semester, the annual cycle of economic policy co-ordination in the EU, which begins each year with the publication of the Commission’s annual growth survey. The European Council will set growth and structural reform priorities for the EU and the member states for the year ahead. The March Council will also take stock of member states’ progress in implementing reform commitments under the 2012 country-specific recommendations and will provide broad guidance to member states on the 2013 stability and convergence programmes and national reform programmes. Ministers will also discuss progress on formulating next steps in deepening European monetary union, as a staging post towards the June European Council meeting at which this will be a central focus.
On external relations, the European Council will discuss strategic partners focusing on EU-Russia relations. We expect that the preparation for this part of the European Council agenda, and any discussion on foreign policy, will primarily be covered in the Foreign Affairs Council, but GAC Ministers may also want to use this opportunity to guide discussions at the European Council. They may also raise issues that have read-across to the broader work of the GAC such as the European neighbourhood policy or Heading 4 funding.
Violence Against Women and Girls Action Plan 2013
(11 years, 2 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
Tomorrow, on international women’s day, the Government are publishing an updated violence against women and girls action plan. A copy will be placed in the Library of the House.
Last year around 1.2 million women suffered domestic abuse and around 400,000 were sexually assaulted. This is wholly unacceptable. We are determined, not just to reduce, but to end violence against women and girls.
Two and a half years ago we set out our strategy to end violence against women and girls. Our key themes of prevention, provision of good-quality services, improved partnership working, better justice outcomes and risk reduction remain as relevant today as when we first agreed our approach.
This action plan updates the efforts underpinning that strategy, and sets out significant progress since the last report was published a year ago. We are also alive to new and emerging issues and the updated plan includes a renewed focus on challenging the attitudes that foster violence against women and girls.
We are proud of the progress this Government have made in protecting the lives of women and girls, but there is still much more to do. This action plan confirms our ongoing commitment to stop the violence and abuse which blights the lives of too many women and girls.
State Opening of Parliament
(11 years, 2 months ago)
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The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Andrew Lansley)
Her Majesty the Queen will open a new Session of this Parliament on Wednesday 8 May 2013.
EU Transport Council
(11 years, 2 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Patrick McLoughlin)
I will attend the first Transport Council of the Irish presidency (the presidency) taking place in Brussels on Monday 11 March.
There will be an introductory discussion on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the interoperability of the rail system within the European Union (recast) (part of the fourth railway package). The UK is keen to hear the range of views and will then need to further consider the impacts through consultation with our stakeholders.
There will be an exchange of views on a proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure and on a communication from the Commission on “Clean Power for Transport: A European alternative fuels strategy”, making up the clean power for transport package. The UK strongly supports the transition to cleaner transport and has the ambitious vision of almost every car and van reaching zero CO2 emission levels at the tailpipe by 2050.
While I recognise that alternative fuels infrastructure is an area that can benefit from support, I am not convinced that setting rigid, mandatory targets for the deployment of technology-specific infrastructure is an effective way of building consumer confidence in new technology.
A progress report will be provided on a proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on occurrence reporting in civil aviation amending Regulation (EU) No. 996/2010 and repealing directive 2003/42/EC, Commission Regulation (EC) No. 1321/2007 and Commission Regulation (EC) No. 1330/2007. I fully support this proposal and welcome the progress that has been made.
Under any other business, the Commission will provide information on the aviation emissions trading scheme (ETS) and on the EU-Brazil comprehensive air transport agreement.
Road Safety
(11 years, 2 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Stephen Hammond)
Drug driving is a menace on our roads with an estimated 200 drug-driving related deaths a year in Great Britain. The Government have a zero tolerance approach to illegal drug use and it is important that we send the strongest possible message that you cannot take illegal drugs and drive.
In order to tackle this threat to safety on our roads, the Government are introducing a new offence of driving or being in charge of a motor vehicle with a specified controlled drug in the body. The new offence is included in the Crime and Courts Bill, currently before Parliament. It will enable more effective law enforcement and help to keep our roads safe.
Last spring, the Department commissioned a panel of medical and scientific experts to provide technical advice on drugs to potentially be covered by the new offence. The panel has concluded its work and today I have published their report, “Driving Under the Influence of Drugs”. I would like to thank Dr Kim Wolff and the panel for the significant work undertaken in analysing a vast amount of research in this area and for making their recommendations.
The Government will carefully consider the panel’s recommendations. In doing so, we are clear that the design of the new offence must send the strongest possible message that you cannot take any amount of illegal drugs and drive.
At the same time the Government must consider the position of those who legitimately and safely use medicines which may contain controlled drugs. We recognise that for the purposes of drug testing, distinguishing between those drugs which do have medical uses and those which do not is complex. We must ensure that the new offence would not unduly penalise drivers who have taken properly prescribed or supplied drugs in line with medical advice.
Later in the year the Government will make specific proposals regarding the drugs to be specified in regulations for the new offence. These proposals will be subject to a public consultation. After taking account of any responses received, regulations containing the final proposals would then need to be approved by Parliament before they could become law.
I am placing a copy of the panel’s report in the House Libraries.
Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council
(11 years, 2 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mr Mark Hoban)
The Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council met on 28 February 2013 in Brussels. I represented the UK.
There was a discussion on the European semester 2013 focusing on the priorities for action highlighted in the annual growth survey (AGS) and joint employment report (JER). The UK stressed the need to ensure that the Europe 2020 process focused on supporting delivery of difficult reforms needed to recover from the crisis. Ministers subsequently adopted Council conclusions on the AGS and the JER. Ministers also agreed a general approach on the guidelines for the employment policies of the member states and endorsed the main messages contained within the Social Protection Committee’s report on the social situation and trends to watch in the EU.
Ministers adopted a Council recommendation for a youth guarantee. The UK stressed the importance of greater member state flexibility especially on the four-month time limit, and put in a parliamentary reserve on the recommendation.
The Commission presented its social investment package, which would pave the way for a stronger social dimension of the EMU and the presidency provided further information on the forthcoming tripartite social summit.
Under any other business the presidency updated the Council on progress under legislative dossiers, the Employment Committee and Social Protection Committee Chairs outlined their work programmes for 2013, and the Employment Committee updated the Council on ongoing work with the social partners on wage developments. Finally the Commission updated Ministers on the transitional arrangements regarding free movement of workers of Bulgarian and Romanian nationals and reported on the working time directive social partner negotiations.
Grand Committee
Automatic Enrolment (Earnings Trigger and Qualifying Earnings Band) Order 2013
(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Newby
That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Automatic Enrolment (Earnings Trigger and Qualifying Earnings Band) Order 2013.
Relevant document: 19th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.
Lord Newby
My Lords, I am pleased to introduce this instrument which was laid before the House on 30 January. I am satisfied that it is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. The aim of automatic enrolment was to broaden access to workplace pensions and increase savings levels, often from a very low or zero start. Our job today is to consider the figures that will apply from April. This will be the second year of live running when companies employing between 10,000 and 250 people start to go live. The automatic enrolment earnings trigger determines who can save in a workplace pension. It sets the automatic entry point. The qualifying earnings band then determines how much people save and sets employer contribution levels.
This is a balancing act. Automatic enrolment is a tailored policy. It does not force pension saving on to everyone regardless of age, earnings or individual circumstances. In setting the figures in this instrument, our overall aim is to maximise the number of people saving who can afford it, while excluding those who cannot. To do this, we need to exclude those very low earners for whom saving on top of the pension they will get from the state may not make economic sense, especially while they have other family priorities.
We also need to provide low earners access to pension saving, with an employer contribution, if saving is the right decision for them. To meet all these aims, we need to bring in employers who have never provided a workers’ pension, or never paid into one, while being realistic about the costs that they will have to bear. We need to cap minimum employer contributions for higher- paid staff and let existing arrangements cater for this market. To deliver these several objectives, we need a system that makes sense for individual workers and their employers. The way that we set these figures can help to achieve this.
I think that we all accept the powerful arguments for income smoothing. We put money aside now while we have it and while we are earning so we have it in our retirement. But of course the very lowest earners may not have the cash now to sacrifice for retirement saving. That is why we believe that the automatic enrolment trigger should exclude those people who may not be well placed to make that sacrifice unless they themselves want to save.
Saving should be an individual decision for people whose earnings hover around the tax threshold. We believe the state’s role is to provide access to saving where automatic saving is not the right approach. That is why the right to opt in, with an employer contribution, is such an important feature of these reforms.
We fully recognise that any rise in the trigger disproportionately affects women. I want to be completely clear that we are not weighing equality against cost. Gender is not the issue. We think the outcome of this review is right for people on very low incomes, regardless of gender. In particular, we do not believe that it is right automatically to enrol people who do not earn enough to pay tax.
Nevertheless, as noble Lords will know, it is possible for non-taxpayers to get tax relief on pension saving depending on the scheme. This top-up may have an impact on pension savings. We are seeing evidence that schemes designed to cater for the under-pensioned market and those targeting low to moderate earners are using, or intend to use, the relief-at-source mechanism precisely because it helps low earners.
This illustrates the point that however carefully the policy targets the right groups, the enrolment process needs to work in practice. We know that people see their employer as the first port of call for anything connected with wages or their pay slip. Automatic enrolment will work best when it is simple for employers to understand, simple to administer and when pension contributions are simple to explain. We may not be quite there yet in all respects, despite some really clever and effective work from some of the lead companies to demystify pensions in the workplace. Aligning automatic enrolment thresholds with existing recognisable payroll figures can be of considerable assistance and this was strongly recognised in the response to the consultation. This will be the second year of live running and it is likely to be a challenging year, as activity starts to ramp up. The overall message we heard is that this is not the time to change course.
The automatic enrolment trigger does not exist in isolation. It is an entry point to saving that works hand in hand with the qualifying earnings band. The band sets a minimum definition of pensionable pay. In simple terms, if you earn £9,500-odd a year, you will pay pension contributions on anything over £5,500. This point about minimum savings is important. Some schemes will have their own definition of pensionable pay, perhaps more generous than the savings band we set today. We are setting a universal minimum quality standard for pension saving, rather than an aspirational target.
We have been debating how best to set the parameters for pensionable pay for automatic enrolment since the pensions commission reported in 2004. The commission originally recommended aligning private pension saving to the national insurance threshold for the state pension—at around £5,000. That was a starting point. It established a core principle: that private pension saving should build on the foundation of the state pension. The commissioners envisaged year-on-year rises, in line with average earnings.
Perhaps I may take your Lordships back to our target market of low-to-moderate earners. This is a group whose wages are less likely to increase by average earnings, so a qualifying earnings band that rises by average earnings will have a disproportionate impact on these people. We considered a variety of other approaches but perhaps I might deal here with the two distinct ones that came out of the consultation we undertook last autumn: abolishing the lower limit or freezing the band.
Abolition would mean putting contributions on earnings from pound one. This would add around £130 million to employer costs next year. It would also hit low earners very hard indeed, to the extent that pension saving could start to look like something to be avoided rather than embraced. As to freezing this year’s figures, we come back to the practical aspects of automatic enrolment. It should work in practice and it should be easy to explain and to understand. Thresholds that bear no relation to anything else on payslips would fail all those three tests.
As noble Lords will be aware, the national insurance contributions upper limit is going down. If we continue to align with national insurance, the upper limit of the qualifying earnings band would go down too. The upper limit serves two purposes. It caps mandatory employer contributions; it also distinguishes the target group of standard-rate taxpayers from earners in a higher tax band. Higher-rate taxpayers tend to have greater access to a pension scheme offering more that the minimum. The issue is whether a reduction in the top limit of the qualifying earnings band would have a disproportionate impact on the target group. The evidence suggests that it will not. Average earnings in the UK are around £26,500 a year. Average earners would not be affected by a change in a contributions rule that bites on people earning nearly £15,000 more than they do. The evidence suggests that the practical advantages of alignment outweigh a reduction in the nominal value of contributions for a subset of higher-rate taxpayers.
I said earlier that setting these thresholds is a balancing act. There is no perfect answer, either in theory or in practice. Nevertheless, we believe that we have used the evidence to consider how we can best achieve the policy intentions and have made reasonable judgments about the various trade-offs. We believe that these proposals continue to provide broad access to pension saving and maintain contributions for the target group. I commend this instrument to the Committee.
Lord German
My Lords, I have a single question on determining the balancing act which the Minister has just talked about. However, my question is in multiple parts. No one is more enthusiastic than I about the raising of the income tax threshold. I have used it in many speeches in your Lordships’ House to illustrate how we have taken many lower earning people out of the tax bracket altogether. However, this is an area where the balancing act does not necessarily work because of the use of the income tax threshold, which has risen well beyond the level of earnings increases and well beyond that of price increases. Here there is a negative aspect to that balance. The number of people who will now be excluded from the automatic element—the “automatic” in the title of the order—is about 420,000 individuals, of whom 320,000, or 76%, are women. The question that primarily worries me and should concern the Committee is whether these are people who should be saving for the future and will be able to maintain over a lifespan the appropriate level of saving for a worthwhile pension. This is where my question splits into several parts.
Of course, people who are excluded as a result of the above earnings increase in the income tax threshold can opt into the system. But there are ways of opting in that may not be as obvious as you might think to many people. I understand that employers are required to make the offer and provide information to their employees if they are below that threshold and within that bracket. Therefore, can the Minister tell me what is the actual requirement on employers to provide information? If it is a piece of paper stuck in an envelope along with the payslip, that may not be the most appropriate information source. This is a tricky area for people to understand and the information may not be being provided in a meaningful way. It should certainly be in clear language. There is probably a whole pension industry that has developed a language of its own in explaining what are essentially straightforward implications in a way that is often impenetrable to many people.
My second question relates to when people are excluded from the automatic element, the declared intention being that it may be inappropriate for some people to save for a pension. Will the Minister explain what “inappropriate” means to lower earners? In the Explanatory Memorandum it is quite clear that people may not need to save if the state will provide. But as noble Lords will know, the pension schemes that the state provides are not static. There is progress towards a single state pension, which may make a difference to the way in which people see their pensions over a longer period of time.
I understand that if people will be low earners for the whole of their working lives it may not be appropriate because they might find that they would get a better deal from just relying on the state. But you cannot determine what the state will provide in 30 or 40 years’ time when you are entering the jobs market at the beginning of your life span. I would be grateful for an explanation of what makes these pension contributions inappropriate for some people.
The third element to the same question is about the relief at source. The Minister has already spoken about that for people who are below the income tax threshold. They can still, using the RAS scheme, benefit from having the tax contribution taken off at source. Do the Government have any intention of promoting the relief at source in order to assist people when making a decision about whether they want to opt into the system? Do they have a view about whether that is something that should be promoted? It is another useful piece of information. If you were told that it would cost you less than if you were paying tax, you would naturally look differently on any contributions that you might have to make. With those few questions rounded into one major question with many parts, I am pleased to support the order.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Newby, for introducing this order. I find myself on pretty much precisely the same page as the noble Lord, Lord German, concerning the points and questions that he raised. When we considered this matter in May last year, we looked forward to the introduction of auto-enrolment and acknowledged the contribution of the many people along the way who had made it happen. Indeed, we also acknowledged the role of this Government in taking it forward. Perhaps this would be an opportune moment to seek an early update on how it is all going.
As we set out last year, we see the merit of simplicity in the earnings band limits being aligned with the national insurance lower and upper earnings limits. This is notwithstanding that the raising of the former and the reduction of the latter means that the band is squeezed by some £1,100 for the upcoming year, with the Government estimating a reduction in pension savings of some £30 million. However, we welcome the fact that the broader definition of earnings, or its equivalent in other schemes, is being retained.
Our main concern, which I am sure will come as no surprise to the Minister, is the one touched upon by the noble Lord, Lord German, of raising the earnings trigger to the new personal allowance level. On the Government’s own figures, this will exclude around 420,000 individuals, 76% of whom are women. Of course, this is on top of those who have been excluded by aligning the trigger to the personal allowance threshold in the current year. We have heard some of the justification for that. It concerns simplicity and whether people are in a position to afford to save.
However, it seems that there is a breakdown in the Government’s logic. Let us say that the Government got the balance right in the current year. Looking at the current year, why should the increase in the personal allowance for other policy measures, which we may or may not agree with, by more than the rate of inflation and more than earnings cause the balance in adjustment as to what people can afford still to equate with the personal allowance threshold? I do not think there is a logical connection between the two. However, we are where we are on that.
The Government’s explanation was that persistent low earners tend to find that, through pensions and benefits, the state provides a level of income in retirement similar to that in working life. Of course, that assumes that today’s low earners will be tomorrow’s low earners. We would hope that as a matter of government policy that would not be the case. The noble Lord, Lord German, touched on the much heralded single-tier pension, which is supposed to negate the need for earnings-related support in the future. It takes us back to the big debates that we had around “pays to save”, when the whole concept of auto-enrolment was being considered and the structure was being put in place. If the single-tier pension is to be introduced and is successful, negating a whole raft of earnings-related means-tested support, that should make it easier to make the judgment about when it will pay to save.
I turn to the issue of tax relief and relief at source. If people are excluded from auto-enrolment due to the personal tax threshold, they are potentially missing out on this chunk of government support. The noble Lord, Lord German, raised absolutely the right point by asking what employers are required to do to make sure that people are aware of this potential benefit. I hope that the Minister can confirm that there is absolutely no intention of changing the structure of tax relief. I think it was confirmed last year that NEST will operate the relief-at-source system, so anyone who was going to be enrolled or who wished to opt into NEST would receive the benefit of that tax support.
I end on the same point as the noble Lord, Lord German, which is: if this is the way things are going to go and if there is to be this increasing raising of the threshold, which will really change the landscape over time if it continues, what publicity will be given to the right to opt in? That becomes ever more important if the threshold is to continue to be raised. What are the Government planning to do generally? What are the requirements on employers, so that those who miss out on auto-enrolment at least have the chance to consider the opt-in route? The key point of auto-enrolment was to deal with inertia, to get people into pension saving because they had to make a decision to opt out. Once you remove that requirement from them, inertia reverts and the onus is on individuals. I think that they have to be above the lower earnings limit to opt in. What support and encouragement will they be given? They should at least know that they have the choice. Given what is happening to the personal tax threshold, that is a key issue for us.
Lord Newby
My Lords, I thank both noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. The questions have been about not the people who will be automatically enrolled but those who might or might not.
Part of the context for this is that even with the uprating of the tax-free limit, in terms of income level we are talking about 29 hours at the minimum wage, so the vast bulk of people in the category we are discussing—people who could join if they wish but who are not automatically enrolled—are likely to be part-time workers. That comes to the final point of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, about what their career paths will be. I would expect quite a number of people in that category now would not necessarily be part-time workers for the rest of their lives. A lot of them will be women with children, who may go on to have a full-time job when their children are older, and we would hope that they would do so if that is appropriate. Of course if they do, they would then be automatically enrolled.
On how we make sure that people know of their rights, which is obviously important, employers must write to employees with information about rights setting out the full picture. The department has developed a language guide and template letters to help employers to communicate clearly with people new to pension saving. I must say that I have not seen that letter. I will now make it my business to read it. If it is a letter that communicates clearly on pensions, it will probably be the first one that I have seen. I am sure that the finest minds in the department have been worrying about that. It is a major problem. By and large, people are ignorant about their pension savings and pension options. It is a challenge in any scheme, but particularly here, where a lot of the people who may be in this category will never have had a pension before. I will enjoy reading that letter.
The noble Lord, Lord German, asked for a definition of “inappropriate”. It is easy to see why for a single-parent family with children, where the mother is working part-time, it is not so much inappropriate as impossible. There just is not the amount of money in the household to enable much saving to take place. Another example of where it might be inappropriate would be if a household had built up debts and had large outstanding payments due, as many people on low incomes do. It would probably be in their financial interest to try to get those debts down before undertaking any savings. I am not sure that is the complete answer but I can see circumstances where, if you were a debt adviser or financial adviser to people who had got into debt and were on low incomes, you would be advising them to pay off those debts first.
There was a question about relief-at-source schemes and how these will be made clear. I hope that the letter explaining to people what their requirements are also explains the relief-at-source mechanism, and I will be looking at that. If it is able to do that in very clear terms, that will be an even greater achievement. I have great confidence in officials at the Department for Work and Pensions being able to clarify what most people find opaque. We are still looking at how relief-at-source schemes are operating as the new system rolls forward. The evidence so far is that schemes aimed at this population are actually using relief-at-source, so at least in that respect the system is working well.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked how many people have been auto-enrolled and how this process is going. We expect that by this April at least 1 million individuals will have been automatically enrolled. The early signs are very positive: some big employers who have gone in first are reporting very low opt-out rates. However, the department has a full evaluation programme and we will be able to produce our first reports on this in the summer.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, also asked whether it was the intention to change the relief-at-source rules. This is a Treasury matter, and we are near the Budget, but I think it is fair to say—and if I am sacked for this I shall blame the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie—that I am not aware of any intention to change the relief-at-source rules. I hope I have answered the questions that noble Lords have asked me.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
If the noble Lord gets sacked for that statement, I shall campaign on his behalf. When he has got over the excitement of reading the letter that he is going to peruse, would he share it with us? That would be helpful.
Lord Newby
I will, because it deserves to have the widest possible readership. With those comments, I commend the order.
Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) (Payment of Claims) (Amendment) Regulations 2013
(11 years, 2 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)
My Lords, I beg to move that the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) (Payment of Claims) (Amendment) Regulations 2013 be considered. I shall speak also to the Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2013. I am required to confirm to the Committee that these provisions are compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, and I am happy to so confirm.
These two regulations increase by 2.2% the lump sum amounts payable under the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) Act 1979 and the mesothelioma scheme set up by the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008. These increased payments will be paid to those who first satisfy all the conditions of entitlement on or after 1 April 2013.
There is no legislative requirement to review the level of payments in these two schemes as they are separate from the main social security benefits uprating provisions. However, the Government have agreed to increase the amounts payable for 2013 using the same 2.2% rate that is being applied to industrial injuries disablement benefit and other disability benefits under the main uprating provisions.
The draft pneumoconiosis regulations also remove references within the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) (Payment of Claims) Regulations 1988 that are no longer relevant. The references related to the two schemes that covered those whose industrial accident or disease was as a result of work before July 1948 and who did not qualify under the main industrial injuries disablement benefit scheme. These pre-July 1948 schemes—the so-called “old schemes”—were abolished under the Welfare Reform Act 2012, with all existing cases and new claims transferred to the industrial injuries disablement benefit scheme. No one lost out as a result of this change and, in fact, the majority of people received an increase of up to £5 per week.
The two schemes before us today are important in compensating those people who unfortunately suffer from diseases as a direct result of being exposed to asbestos or to one of the other listed causes of the diseases covered by these schemes. Because of the very long latency period—in some cases stretching back decades—between the time a person was exposed to asbestos and when the symptoms of the disease become apparent, a successful civil damages claim may be difficult to achieve.
These two compensation schemes provide payments on a no-fault basis and therefore aim to ensure that sufferers can be compensated while they are still able to benefit from it. In some cases, civil litigation may still be pursued, but these payments allow a payment to be made irrespective of the outcome of the case. I will briefly summarise the specific purpose of each of these lump-sum compensation schemes.
The Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) Act 1979—referred to as the 1979 Act—applies to those who have contracted one of the five dust-related respiratory diseases covered by the scheme through their occupation, who are unable to claim damages from employers after they have gone out of business and who have not brought any action for damages. It can be paid only if someone would have been entitled to industrial injuries disablement benefit for the disease in question. The five diseases are diffuse mesothelioma, bilateral diffuse pleural thickening, pneumoconiosis, byssinosis and primary carcinoma of the lung if accompanied by asbestosis or bilateral diffuse pleural thickening.
The 2008 mesothelioma lump-sum payments scheme was introduced to compensate those who contracted mesothelioma but were unable to claim compensation for that disease under the 1979 Act. It covers those whose exposure may have been due to environmental causes, instead of being a result of their work, and it means that sufferers can get a payment quickly to meet their needs. Under both schemes, dependants can make a claim when the sufferer died before being able to do so.
The rates of payment under the 1979 Act are based on the percentage level of the disablement assessment and the age of the sufferer at the time the disease is diagnosed for a claim to industrial injuries disablement benefit. The earlier the age of the sufferer at diagnosis and the higher the level of disability, the higher the level of payment that is made. All payments as a result of contracting mesothelioma are made at the 100% rate of disablement—the highest rate available. The 2008 mesothelioma scheme mirrors this as all payments under that scheme are made at the 100% rate of disablement, variable only by the age of the sufferer at the time of diagnosis.
Noble Lords may like to know how many claims we received and the amounts paid out under these schemes. In the last full year from April 2011 to March 2012, 2,750 people received payments under the 1979 Act at a cost of £37.7 million, and 480 people received payments under the 2008 scheme at a cost of £9.3 million. The total amount of compensation paid out under both schemes during this period amounted to £47 million.
In the current financial year from April 2012 to September 2012, 1,610 people received payments under the 1979 Act, amounting to £21.9 million, and 250 people received payments under the 2008 scheme, amounting to £4.9 million. The total compensation paid in the first six months of this year amounts to £26.8 million.
The forecast for next year is that 3,100 people will be paid under the 1979 Act, and 500 people will be paid under the 2008 scheme. The estimated amount of compensation likely to be paid is £53.7 million.
Over 60% of 1979 Act payments made are as a result of contracting mesothelioma—a terrible and fatal disease caused almost exclusively by asbestos exposure. People diagnosed with mesothelioma will usually have a short life expectancy of around nine to 13 months, and it is likely that they will become severely disabled shortly after diagnosis.
I can advise noble Lords that the number of deaths from mesothelioma in Great Britain continues to rise. In 1968, there were 153 deaths from mesothelioma. The disease has a long latency, taking decades for symptoms to become apparent. Today, more than 2,300 men and women each year are dying from the disease. The information currently available suggests that mesothelioma deaths in men will plateau at around 2,100 by 2016. Accepting that accurate predictions are difficult, the current thought is that deaths in women will peak at a later period than they do in men, but the number of deaths will be lower. The total number of deaths will likely be around 4,500 each year if we include other asbestos-related deaths such as asbestosis and lung cancer.
It is clear that the government schemes we are debating today provide valuable help for people suffering from mesothelioma. However, the Government are planning to do more to help those unfortunate people who have contracted the disease. I am able to tell the Committee that the Government are working with the Association of British Insurers and other stakeholders to develop a scheme to help mesothelioma suffers who cannot trace an employer or insurer against whom they can make a claim for damages.
My noble friend Lord Freud announced in July last year that the Government would introduce legislation when parliamentary time allowed. Until such time as the Government can introduce legislation, we are unable to provide noble Lords with specific details of the scheme. However, the Government’s intention remains that anyone diagnosed on or after 25 July 2012 who meets the eligibility requirements will be able to bring a claim against the mesothelioma support scheme.
These regulations increase the level of help provided by the Government through these compensation schemes to support those people unfortunate enough to have contracted these diseases, as well as their dependants. Of course, we are all aware that no amount of money will ever compensate individuals and families for their suffering and loss caused by these diseases, but those who are suffering rightly deserve some form of monetary compensation, and it is only right that they receive it before it is too late.
I commend to noble Lords the increase of the payment scales and ask for approval to implement them.
Lord Wigley
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for outlining in some considerable detail the statistics relating to these two schemes. I will come back to a question that I would have put to him had I been able to intervene earlier. The regulations under consideration today make provision, as has been outlined, for the uprating of the amount payable to sufferers of pneumoconiosis and mesothelioma in line with inflation. As the Minister reminded us, there is in fact no statutory obligation to do this. However, the previous Government did so and I am very glad that the present Government are doing likewise, so that the value at least comes somewhere close to keeping up with inflation.
A lump sum is payable under the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) Act 1979 for sufferers of lung diseases including, as the Minister said, byssinosis, pneumoconiosis—including asbestosis—diffuse pleural thickening, asbestos-related lung cancer and mesothelioma. When the Minister quoted figures relating to the past year, I was wondering in that context whether, under the 1979 Act payments, he can differentiate between those relating to mesothelioma and those related to the other sources of lung disease which qualify under that Act.
The 1979 Act was one in which I and my party, Plaid Cymru, had some considerable involvement, as some colleagues may recall. That was because the legislation had considerable significance for the slate-quarrying industry, as well as for some aspects of coal mining. I was also involved in issues relating to mesothelioma associated with working with asbestos, as a number of cases in the old Ferodo factory in Caernarvon were arising then. There is still a tale that leads out of that period. More recently, I have become quite alarmed by the potential number of mesothelioma sufferers from a range of industries, particularly construction industries. Even among those who have been working in schools, including teachers, some of the answers received indicate the worry that may arise in that context.
None the less, the payment is made to claimants who are awarded industrial injuries disablement benefit and is geared to the age of the claimant. If the claimant dies before submitting a claim, dependants of course receive a lower rate of payment. This can lead to increasing stress on the very individuals who are ill, who feel forced to rush through their claims to maximise the compensation available to their families. If these people are too sick to make a claim before their death, their families will be left with the lesser amount.
It is now widely accepted that the differential payments between the living claimants and the dependants of those who have died is, frankly, not fair. The annual uprating of these payments is debated each year in both Houses, and in 2010, Committees from both places agreed that this was especially pertinent to mesothelioma cases, where claimants often pass away shortly after diagnosis. I think the Minister acknowledged that in his opening speech. This means that their families will not have had sufficient time to submit a claim prior to their relative’s death. Both Houses thus decided in 2010 that the Government should reduce the difference between payments that year, with the eventual aim of eliminating the differential. Despite this commitment, since 2010 no ground has been made on ending this inconsistency, as I understand it. Bearing in mind that dependency claims represented only 8% of all claims in 2011, and only 5% of the total cost of all claims, surely the Government can see the expediency of ending this anomaly.
Ending the differential would also mean extending the upper age limit for dependency payments from 67 and over to 77 and over. This would bring payments in line with those for in-life claimants—yet another inconsistency that unfairly disadvantages the families of individuals who, for the most part, were too ill to make claims before their death. I urge the Government to commit to finally ending this anomaly. The same should apply to the scheme set up under the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008, which provides for a lump sum to be paid to mesothelioma sufferers who did not qualify for payment under the 1979 Act, due to being self-employed or having not had occupational exposure. With this scheme, too, dependants of those who died before submitting a claim are paid a lower rate.
Claimants will be at a further disadvantage due to a mistake which the Department for Work and Pensions made in 2010 in calculating the dependency payments for all ages at 50% plus disablement. As a result of this mistake, the department has overpaid since 2010 and, as I understand it, is now in the process of correcting that mistake. The result of all this is that payments have been cut from £7,915 in 2012 to £7,180 in 2013. So as well as failing to equalise the in-life and dependency payments, the Government have also reduced the amount available for dependants in mesothelioma cases because of this mistake. I understand that mistakes have to be corrected. None the less, it has that effect. Surely the Government accept that this position is not ideal.
Before concluding, I ask whether in mesothelioma cases the Government can make every effort to speed up decisions and payment, for the obvious reasons on which I do not need to expand. Perhaps I may also flag up that there is grave misgiving that using the portal process will prove to be wholly unsuitable for complex mesothelioma cases and is unlikely to speed up decisions in such cases. I would be very grateful for the Minister’s response on these important aspects of pneumoconiosis and mesothelioma issues covered by the two orders before us today.
Lord Avebury
My Lords, I echo what the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, has said about the commitments that were made two years ago and about the inconsistency of the Government’s response to the demands that were made, I think in both Houses, at that time. When the equivalent to this order was debated two years ago there was criticism by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and my noble friend Lord German of the gap which had developed between payments under the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008 to living mesothelioma sufferers and to their dependants after they had died. As the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, has said, it may take some time before a claim is submitted. Very ill patients may not be capable of addressing the matter in time. Equally, it is very awkward for relatives of the sufferer or for the local Asbestos Victims Support Group to get a signature from a patient who may be in great pain and on the point of dying, so that a claim can be submitted on his behalf.
The result was that in 2011, there were 2,952 in-life claims and 270 dependency claims. The Minister gave some statistics about the payments made to these individuals but it would be useful if, when he winds up, he could say something about the rates of claims submitted and separate them into in-life and dependency for 2013 and for the years up to the plateau which he says will occur in 2016. I think that that is a year later than we had previously been told.
In 2011, the average in-life payment was £15,204, while the average dependency payment was £9,026, which is trivial enough compensation when you think about someone who has got this frightful disease and even more so for the widow who has gone through the traumatic experience of seeing her husband die in excruciating pain. Of course, these payments are intended to tide the patient or the widow over pending the settlement of a claim which may lie against the former employer in whose service the exposure to asbestos occurred. For some patients, however, as the noble Lord has explained, the discrepancy is actually widening this year. One would have no hint of this from either the order or the Explanatory Memorandum, but the widow of a mesothelioma victim aged 67 at the time of his death will get £7,180 in 2013, compared with the equivalent figure in 2012 of £7,915 and £17,799 for the in-life claimant.
As the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, said, the reason for that discrepancy, the 9% cut, was explained by the DWP by the fact that it had made a mistake in 2010 in calculating the dependency payments for all ages at 50% plus disablement, and that resulted in overpayments to the band of dependency claimants we are concerned with in 2011 and 2012. As a result of that mistake, the dependency rate moved closer to the in-life rate, which, as I said, was clearly the intention of both Houses when we debated the matter in 2011. Nothing in the Explanatory Memorandum gives a hint of that bizarre outcome. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain why it was not drawn to the attention, at least of the Asbestos Victims Support Groups Forum UK, run by Mr Tony Whitston, who discovered it only by accident.
I should also like my noble friend to explain why we have departed from the principle that used to operate. When a mistake of this nature occurred that operated to the benefit of the citizen, we used to say that public faith was thereby pledged and that the Government would stick to the errors made and pay the amounts now to be issued in recognition of the mistake. Since 2008, lump-sum payments have been recovered by the DWP claims recovery unit in cases where civil claims for compensation are successful, and £21.3 million was recovered under the scheme in 2011. The Government expect that a further £49 million will be recovered over a 10-year period through the tariff scheme funded by insurers to pay compensation in cases where it is not possible to trace employers’ liability insurance.
If the Minister could give an estimate—I do not suggest that he should immediately, but when he has had a chance to discuss it with officials—of the net cost of dependency payments over the 10 years, based on the assumption that equalisation would be achieved in a straight line over that period, that would be helpful. The calculation should assume that over the same period, the cut-off age for those payments is raised from 67 and over to 77 and over, the cut-off age for in-life payments over the same 10 years. That would be useful in assessing the likelihood of being able to equalise the payments over that 10-year period.
I recognise that we will not secure any improvement in the lump-sum payment scheme for this year, because the parliamentary process does not allow that to happen. It is a defect in our system that so much is done by secondary legislation, which cannot be amended. In cases like this, where the Government obviously know that what they are proposing is highly controversial, they should offer the stakeholders concerned the chance to put their views forward at a Select Committee-type hearing before coming to a final decision. It is surely wrong that Parliament should be confined to expressing nugatory complaints about decisions such as this which affect people with mortal illnesses.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for introducing the regulations. I am bound to say that we are used to seeing a DWP Minister deal with them, but we are delighted that it is the noble Earl. I do not know whether that is a passage of a change in policy; we would be interested to hear if it is.
We have made known our general position on uprating by CPI rather than RPI, and that has not changed, but we can support the thrust of the regulations and maintain consensus about these two very important schemes. We are delighted in particular that these payments have not been subjected to the 1% uprating cap.
I note that the alignment of payments between the two schemes both for claimants and dependants has been maintained, and this is obviously something that we support. It is an important matter. But both the noble Lords, Lord Wigley and Lord Avebury, raised the point about the disparity between claimants and their dependants. Certainly, it is my recollection that it was the aspiration that the gap between these amounts be closed, or at least narrowed. Perhaps the Minister can tell us when an assessment was last made of the prospect of achieving this and whether there are any plans to do so.
Both noble Lords who have spoken referred to an error in 2010 and a correction to it which seemed to slip through the Explanatory Notes that we have today. That is quite possible, but an error in 2010 would have been on our watch if it was in the early part of the year. I was trying to recall what that might be. Certainly, if the adjustments that have flowed from it have not been fully explained, that is not good practice, and we would be interested to hear from the Minister on that point.
I am aware from the Cancer Research UK website of several clinical trials being undertaken in respect of mesothelioma and I wonder whether the Minister, wearing his Department of Health hat, has anything that he wishes to impart on the subject. I was going to ask a question about projections of peak numbers, but he dealt with that in his presentation.
The Minister also dealt with the question of pre-1948 schemes saying that people previously under those schemes would be transferred to IIDB. He said that most would receive an increase of up to £5 per week and obviously that is to be welcomed. He also said that no one would lose out, but is that as a result of specific transitional arrangements and protections that are in the scheme?
The Minister pre-empted another question. He has given us an update on the amounts of compensation paid under the two schemes for the previous year and the current year. But perhaps he can also let us have the figures for compensation recovery for these same periods. Compensation recovery was meant to fund certainly the 2008 scheme and contribute to the 1979 scheme.
On the subject of compensation recovery, the tracing and availability of employer liability insurance is clearly relevant. The Minister will be aware of the consultation launched by the previous Government—indeed, he referred to it—on the Employers’ Liability Insurance Bureau as a fund of last resort when employer liability policies could not be traced. The Government's belated response to that consultation—it was slipped out on the last day of the parliamentary Session in July 2012—was a huge disappointment.
Despite what the Minister said in introducing the regulations, could we have an update on progress on this? There are concerns around the scope of the bureau, time limits for making claims and opportunities for dependants to engage. The formulation that we heard a moment ago was that these things would go forward when parliamentary time allowed. We have a week spare as a result of the extra week that we were granted just today, so I am not sure what the pressure on the parliamentary timetable is that precludes this coming forward. It has been a long-term aspiration because we know that there are difficulties in identifying employer liability insurance policies.
The Minister will also be aware of government plans to change the basis on which employees will be able to claim compensation for injury and ill-health caused by work. There is the proposition that claims in the future will have to be based on establishing negligence. What assessment have the Government made of this change, which was rejected by noble Lords in a vote just yesterday? What is the assessment of its impact on compensation recoveries generally and as a source of funding for the 1979 Act and 2008 Act schemes?
Notwithstanding those questions, these are two important schemes that bring some relief to the thousands of people who are afflicted by these terrible diseases, and we will maintain the consensus and support the regulations.
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, as to why a Health Minister is responding, I am, at least for this afternoon and for the first time, proudly wearing my DWP hat in the absence of my noble friend Lord Freud, who is unavoidably on government business abroad. I should not say abroad: he is in Scotland.
I shall begin with the statistics, which have prompted questions from a number of noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, asked about payments made under the 1979 Act related to mesothelioma, as opposed to other diseases. I do not have the actual figures to hand, but I can say that over 60% of payments made under the 1979 Act are in relation to mesothelioma, and the rest to other conditions. My noble friend Lord Avebury asked whether I could supply an estimate of the net cost of payments over the next 10 years, including equalisation, if that were to occur. I shall gladly write to my noble friend; it would not be right for me to come out with a figure this afternoon, because it is likely to be incorrect.
My noble friend also asked me for a forecast of payments from 2013 to 2016. We have not formally forecasted figures for these schemes, but the split for the last financial year, 2011-12, is: under the 1979 Act, 2,480 sufferers and 270 dependents claimed; and under the 2008 scheme, 450 sufferers and 30 dependents claimed.
The noble Lords, Lord Wigley and Lord McKenzie, asked me to comment on the proposal that payments to dependents and sufferers should be equalised. First, I share the concerns about the plight of dependants. I understand the difficulties that families face when their loved ones suffer illness. That is why the department is always working to improve the processes to ensure that claims are dealt with as quickly as possible: as the noble Lord rightly said, sometimes sufferers and dependants struggle to make claims before the person dies. At the same time, we need to fulfil our obligation to ensure that all claims are appropriate and legitimate. Ministers have to balance competing priorities, and because of the current financial situation, it is our duty to ensure that all available resources are well targeted. As around 85% of payments made under these schemes are paid to those who are suffering from the disease, I believe that they are currently rightly targeted on the sufferer to help them and their families to cope while living with the stress that illness inevitably brings.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked me about the disparity of payments and when an assessment was last made. I simply say to him that we keep these schemes under review. While in the current economic situation we have no plans to make changes to the scheme at present, naturally we will revisit this issue at regular intervals.
The noble Lords, Lord Wigley and Lord McKenzie, and my noble friend Lord Avebury referred to the error that caused some people to have been overpaid lump-sum payments and they asked what the situation was regarding that overpaid amount. Before last year’s debate, officials in the department identified an error in the rate tables for a specific subset of dependants resulting in a dependant receiving a higher award than a sufferer would have received. Even though this error would apply to only very few people, it did not reflect the policy intention that available resources should be focused on the sufferers of the disease rather than dependants. Consequently, the position was rectified and the amended regulations were debated and approved last year. However, an operational error was made to the effect that the revised figures were not input into operational systems and this resulted in a number of dependants being overpaid. The department is currently considering how to deal with these cases, and I am advised that no decision has yet been taken.
I understand the point made by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, concerning the amount of compensation recovery that the department receives in relation to payments made under the 1979 Act and the 2008 scheme, and the suggestion that this should be used to offset the cost of increasing the number of dependant payments. The total amount of compensation recovered from civil compensation claims in respect of payments made under both schemes exceeds the cost of making the payments under the 2008 scheme. However, these recoveries are also used to offset the cost of payments made under the 1979 Act, which still results in an overall cost to the department of making these valuable lump-sum payments. I have some figures in front of me on the amounts recovered in recent years. The noble Lord may like to note that in 2010-11 the amount was £18.4 million, and in 2011-12 it was £21.3 million, which is considerably less than the overall outlay made by the department.
The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, asked about the use of a portal. I am advised that the Ministry of Justice announced on 18 December last year that it would consult on the use of a portal and other related matters, and we expect this consultation to commence this spring.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked me about clinical trials for mesothelioma. The British Lung Foundation has undertaken work looking at mapping the genome. We continue to engage with all research organisations on this. If I have any additional information to give him on this having consulted my officials in the Department of Health, I shall be happy to send it to him. He also asked me about the pre-1948 scheme and whether it is correct that no one will lose out as part of the transition from one scheme to another. That is correct. Where any existing pre-1948 payments were lower than the IIDB payments, they were brought up to a higher level at that time.
Lord Wigley
I am very grateful to the Minister for going through these matters in such great detail. Am I not right that the pre-1948 cases could also receive lump-sum payments? He referred to £5 a week, which of course is a Revenue payment. Is there any danger of people losing out on the entitlement to lump sums?
Earl Howe
I am advised from the highest authority that the answer to that question is no. If I can supply the noble Lord with any further information, I would be happy to do so. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked me whether I could give him any further information on the progress for the new meso scheme. The Department for Work and Pensions is actively working with stakeholders, including the Asbestos Victims Support Group to develop this scheme. Unfortunately, I am not in a position to say anything ahead of the gracious Speech—but we might or might not hear something to our advantage on that occasion.
However, I can say that we fully understand that people who develop diffuse mesothelioma as a result of their negligent exposure to asbestos at work and who are unable to trace a relevant employer or their employers’ liability insurance policy to claim against would be eligible to claim from this scheme. We appreciate the urgency of the situation. As I have mentioned, eligible claimants diagnosed with diffuse mesothelioma from 25 July 2012 onwards will be able to receive a payment once the scheme commences.
I am aware that there may be one or two questions I have not been able to answer, some of which I have already referred to. However, I hope that in the main I have covered the issues raised and I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Before the noble Earl sits down, I should like to thank him because he has gone through a lot of detail for us today. As regards the potential impact of the debate we are having generally about changes to the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act, civil liability and negligence, has there been any assessment of the relevance of that to compensation recoveries that are factored into the funding of the schemes that we are talking about today?
Earl Howe
My answer to that would be expressed in general terms. It is a longstanding principle that people should not be compensated twice. Usually, where social security benefits have been paid, they are recovered from compensation where people have been successful in a subsequent civil claim. That is the underlying thinking that is guiding us. But again, if I can enlighten the noble Lord further, I will do so in a letter.
Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2013
(11 years, 2 months ago)
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House of Lords
Sport: Women and Girls
(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Massey of Darwen
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they will take to encourage women and girls to take part in sport, and how they will seek to improve the profile of women’s sport in the media to that end.
Baroness Northover
My Lords, the Government are committed to encouraging more girls and women to play sport regularly as part of the sporting legacy. Sport England’s £1 billion community and youth sports strategy includes programmes designed to appeal specifically to women and girls. In addition, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has been working closely with the broadcast and print media to encourage them to cover more women’s sport.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
I thank the noble Baroness for that encouraging Answer, but can she expand on the consultation that is taking place not only with the media but with sports advisers in schools to encourage girls? In particular, what kind of sports are being identified as problematic for women and girls, and how will the media be asked to deal with that?
Baroness Northover
The picture here is encouraging but there is a tremendous amount more to do. I was struck by the fact that the latest figures, from December 2012, show that 1 million more women are taking part in sport than was the case when we won the Olympic bid in 2005. On coverage, in 2005 the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation estimated that only about 5% of media coverage was of women’s sport. The BBC has just told us that women’s sport now amounts to 25% of its sports coverage. Clearly, a lot more needs to be done and one of the things that is being taken forward by Sport England is to look at how best to encourage further development of this and encourage more women and girls to take part in sport.
Baroness Heyhoe Flint
My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that developing a sporting habit for life is something that needs to start in primary school? There is a minimal amount of physical education within that sector and teachers of primary school children receive only a meagre six to 10 hours within a one-year training session. Back in the last century, my physical education training took three years. Would the Minister agree if I suggested that the introduction of physical education to primary school teachers would be a great advantage in developing that habit for life?
Baroness Northover
My noble friend speaks from a huge amount of experience and she is of course right that it is extremely important that we develop this from the earliest age—getting children out of pushchairs, for example, and onwards. As for primary schools, she is right. I am sure that she will be reassured to know that discussions are happening at the moment about how to strengthen school sport from primary schools upwards. An announcement will be made very shortly.
Baroness Grey-Thompson
My Lords, media coverage is very important and I declare an interest as chair of the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation’s Commission on the Future of Women’s Sport. However, for elite success and media coverage we also need good participation figures and recent data have shown that mums are much less likely to take their daughters to play sport than their sons because of their own experience of sport in school. Can the Minister say what plans the Government have to insist in changing the culture around women so that they encourage their daughters to play as much sport as their sons?
Baroness Northover
Again, the noble Baroness speaks with huge amounts of experience and the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation is a crucial body in trying to take this forward. Sport England has awarded a grant to that organisation to try to identify how best to encourage women and girls to be involved in sport. The noble Baroness is absolutely right that mothers who were themselves switched off from sport are less likely to encourage their children to be involved in sport. That is one key area where we welcome insights into how best to tackle this.
Baroness Nye
My Lords, does the Minister agree that, after the success of women athletes at the Olympics last year, it is a disgrace that two-thirds of boards of sporting organisations do not meet UK Sport’s minimum target of 25% female members and six, including British Cycling, do not have a woman on them at all? Given that public money is involved, do the Government have a strategy to deal with this?
Baroness Northover
The noble Baroness is right; Sport England and UK Sport are both encouraging national governing bodies of sport to increase the number of women on boards and the Government expect that all publicly funded sports bodies should have at least 25% women on their boards by 2017. That is very important but we also need more women as editors of newspapers, political programmes and so on.
Baroness Sharples
My Lords, does the Minister accept that the earlier you start to play sport, the more chance you have of playing golf, as I do, at the age of 90?
Baroness Meacher
My Lords, is the Minister aware of the outstanding work being done in many of the mental health trusts in London to promote sport among psychotic young people? We found that taking part in regular football matches, exercise and so on significantly reduces the readmission rates of these young people. Would the Minister please put pressure on her colleagues in the Department of Health to exert pressure on the commissioning bodies to promote sport among psychotic people? Without it, many of them make very little recovery over decades?
Baroness Northover
The noble Baroness is right to highlight mental health generally in relation to sport. Public Health England is well aware of the importance of sport in relieving depression and so on. I am very happy to take the points that she makes back but I can assure her that the Department of Health is well aware of the significance of sport in this regard.
Baroness Billingham
My Lords, the Government are determined that competitive sport in schools is the key to greater participation; that view is certainly not shared by the majority of physical education experts, who fear that such a programme will alienate many boys and girls and do nothing to produce a “sport for all” approach and lasting participation. What evidence is there for the Government’s proposed formula? Our evidence suggests the reverse. As for representation in the media, will the Government look at Title IX, the American system which guarantees equal exposure in sport for girls? We cannot reproduce it perfectly here but we could do a modified version, which may well help with the lack of women’s sport seen in our media.
Baroness Northover
We now have 50% of schools taking part in competitive games. There is mixed evidence as to the interest of girls and boys in that, and the noble Baroness is right to highlight to need to make sure that we analyse it properly. Sport England is looking at how best to encourage girls as well as boys to come forward. Some girls enjoy being part of a team, even if that may seem too competitive for some. I hear what the noble Baroness says on Title IX. We are taking a lot of measures to try to ensure that the media recognise the significance of covering women’s sport and the appeal of it—everybody could see how outstanding the women’s team was in the Olympics.
Women: Board Membership
(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Howells of St Davids
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they will take to address the under-representation of women, especially black and ethnic minority women, on FTSE 100 boards.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
My Lords, in 2010, the noble Lord, Lord Davies, reviewed the barriers to women reaching the boardrooms of UK plc. Following his report, a voluntary, business-led strategy for the advancement of all women irrespective of their ethnicity was adopted. This is working; for example, the number of FTSE 100 all-male boards has fallen from 21 to six. However, we are not complacent. The most recent figures for women on FTSE 100 boards prove that there is no room for that.
Baroness Howells of St Davids
I thank the noble Baroness for her response. She has cited the report from which I was going to quote. It seems absurd that, after more than 30 years of equality legislation, we continue to see only glacial progress in the representation of women on the boards of our 100 most lucrative companies. Women are now successful at university and in their early careers, but attrition rates increase as they progress through those organisations. The companies are missing out. Evidence suggests that companies without strong female representation are less successful because they are unable to draw from the widest possible range. My concern is not women who are European—although I know that they are suffering—but those from black and ethnic minorities who are willing to serve on boards.
Baroness Howells of St Davids
I would like to ask the Minister what the Government are doing about that.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
The noble Baroness is absolutely right that we want more women on boards. We do so because they make up more than half of the nation’s talent and we cannot afford for the best and brightest not to be there. The statistics on black and minority ethnic women are not available because the statistics for women on boards are not broken down in that way, but I know anecdotally that they are not great. What I can say to the noble Baroness is that, through a range of measures that the Government are taking, we are ensuring that our effort expands to cover all women. She may like to know that the Women’s Business Council, which we set up to make sure that we address the pipeline so that more women come forward, is chaired by Ruby McGregor-Smith, who is chief executive of MITIE and the only Asian woman chief executive in the FTSE 250. She is chairing that council for the Government because she is so committed to diversity in all its forms.
Baroness Brinton
My Lords, 17.5% of FTSE 100 boards are made of up of women. I prefer to use that figure rather than the number of companies that have one token woman on the board. I know that it is below the target set by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, but it is a step forward from the 1990s. Given this very low figure, what steps are the Government taking to ensure that sufficient mentoring and counselling are available to women below board level who have ambitions of rising within companies and breaking through the glass ceiling?
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
My noble friend is right that mentoring is an important aspect of encouraging more women to put themselves forward for these senior roles. That is an important issue that the Women’s Business Council, which I just referred to, is looking at. I hope that we will see some evidence to help us in its report due out later this year.
Baroness Wall of New Barnet
My Lords, I am sure that the noble Baroness is aware of the tremendous investigation and work carried out by my noble friend Lord Davies of Abersoch. One fundamental issue that has come through in that research is that role models start very young. Are the Government consciously working to ensure that young women going from schools into colleges and universities—that is, black women and those from ethnic minorities, but also all women—have that aspiration?
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
We certainly need to make sure that all girls at school have high aspirations and that we encourage them to be ambitious. If the noble Baroness is around for the International Women’s Day debate that follows Questions, that is an area that I hope to expand on in my opening speech.
Lord Kakkar
My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of Sub-Committee B of your Lordship’s European Union Committee, which was involved in scrutinising a directive provided by the European Commission on this matter. Are Her Majesty’s Government content to accept that directive in view of the fact that both Houses of this Parliament have sent a reasoned opinion raising their concerns about it to the European institutions?
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
As the noble Lord knows, the Government very much welcomed the reasoned opinion put forward from this House and the other place. Sadly, I am told that not enough member state Parliaments issued a reasoned opinion for that to be successful in raising what is termed a red card or yellow card in Brussels—I am not sure. As far as we are concerned, we are still actively working with other EU members to make sure that whatever arrives finally from the European Commission supports our own approach to this issue.
Lord Flight
My Lords, I believe sincerely that there is a general wish and support for more suitably qualified women on boards. Yet surely the role of directors is to oversee the running of a business and that needs people with the appropriate skills. To the extent that they are representative, they are representative of shareholders and not really in a quantitative context of the nation at large.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
Okay. I say to my noble friend that we need more women on boards because half the people who spend money in the economy are women, as are half the people who have pensions that are part of the investment into those companies that enjoy that benefit. We just bring so much more that I find it astonishing that he does not feel the same way.
Violence against Women and Girls
Baroness Prosser
What action they will take to ensure that the action plan for ending violence against women and girls is delivered consistently in schools.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, the Department for Education is committed to making the cross-government action plan on violence against women as effective as possible. The statutory guidance for sex and relationship education makes clear that schools should ensure that young people develop positive values and a moral framework that will guide their decisions, judgments and behaviour, and specifically that all young people should understand how the law applies to sexual relationships.
Baroness Prosser
I thank the Minister for her reply. One part of the Home Office action plan on violence against women and girls commits to work across different government agendas to increase activity to influence children’s attitudes to violence against women and girls. If that is the case, why has the Department for Education not been required to place this within the core curriculum in schools? How do the Government think that girls who are in danger will be given the self-confidence and information they need to enable them to deal with dangerous and threatening situations?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness for her influential work on women’s and girls’ rights and opportunities. I entirely agree with her that girls should be equipped to deal with threatening situations and act confidently, but this provision should not be limited by a narrow curriculum requirement. The ethos of the school and the attitude of staff in all aspects of school life should play a key part, and all schools should seek to set a strong example for pupils to follow.
Baroness Hussein-Ece
My Lords, may I ask my noble friend the Minister what is being done following the overwhelming evidence in the British Crime Survey 2009-10 which found that 16 to 19 year-olds are more likely to be at risk of abuse? Studies indicate that in the past year one in four teenage girls have experienced abuse by their partners. What work is being done across schools and further education colleges to prevent relationship abuse and equip young people with an understanding of healthy relationships, consent and non-violence?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My noble friend raises some very important issues. The safeguarding of children in schools is an important part of the training of teachers. They should all have the skills and knowledge to identify and respond to bullying, violence and signs of abuse or neglect. As she points out, if the abuse is happening at home, that is an area where one might hope that children would acquire some moral confidence, strength and values. Teachers have a particularly challenging role if they have to identify that it is the domestic situation that is causing the problem. Of course, schools try to address all these topics within the curriculum.
Lord West of Spithead
My Lords, would the Minister not admit that one of the most pernicious and dangerous aspects of violence against women is female genital mutilation? When I was a Minister I became aware of this obscene business and I am afraid that I was not able to stop it as much I would have hoped. Can the Minister tell us what the Government are doing to achieve some results in this area? At the moment, what I have seen of it seems rather Autolycus-like, and we know what happened to him.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
The noble Lord is right. To ensure that female genital mutilation is tackled, cross-departmental work is going on between the Home Office, the Department for Education and the Department of Health to try to identify the particular cohorts of girls who might be most at risk and to prevent this happening before it takes hold in particular cultural parts of society.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, does the Minister think that personal, social and health education in the curriculum is essential to cover the aspects that she has discussed today so eloquently? She is right that this should be covered by the ethos of the school, but surely specific issues such as child internet safety and violence in the media should be tackled head on.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I know the noble Baroness’s campaigning skills in this area and we agree that the content of PSHE is important in the school curriculum. However, parts of that are sometimes tackled under other subject areas within a school. All schools must have regard to the Secretary of State’s guidance in this area when they are teaching relationship education. Of course, sex education is already statutory but other aspects of relationships are key across all subject areas in schools.
Baroness Brinton
My Lords, the Minister has just said that all schools must have due regard to guidance on sex and relationship education. Does this include independent schools, such as the Hales Exclusive Brethren schools, that fail to teach any sex and relationship education because they believe that it is completely inappropriate until the age of 20?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
As my noble friend is aware, there are different flexibilities and freedoms for some independent schools in this country but there will always be a need for schools to have regard to the best interests of their pupils.
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead
My Lords, tomorrow is International Women’s Day. Does the Minister agree that violence against girls in and around schools is a global problem, and that in developing countries girls endure harassment and sexual violence from teachers and face considerable danger as they walk to school? Can the Minister tell the House whether DfID is working with Governments to enforce policies that combat sexual exploitation and abuse by teachers, and whether more is being done to retrain and retain female teachers?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
The noble Baroness takes this Question beyond the original remit, but I assure her that DfID is working consistently in this area to try to ensure the safeguards that she has identified in countries beyond our own.
Baroness Whitaker
My Lords, does the Government’s action plan address the considerable violence and bullying meted out to girls of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller origin?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
The guidance will cover all pupils and all schools, so all minority groups should be within it.
European Convention on Human Rights
(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Clinton-Davis
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have any plans to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights.
Lord Clinton-Davis
My Lords, as the only male to have the temerity to be on the list today, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
I am not going there, my Lords.
The Answer to the Question is no.
Lord Clinton-Davis
Did not the Home Secretary argue recently that the next Tory election manifesto should include a pledge to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, thus reflecting the views of many Conservative MPs? Was that not described by the former Justice Secretary as “laughable and childlike”? Does not this division on a serious issue of policy show evidence of a hopeless split in the Conservative-led Government today?
Lord McNally
My Lords, I speak at this Dispatch Box for the coalition Government and the coalition Government’s policy on the European Convention on Human Rights is very clear. The noble Lord asked a specific question, “Is it our policy to withdraw?”, and I gave him a specific Answer: “The Answer is no”.
Lord Pannick
My Lords, do the Government recognise the link between this Question and the previous three in that the European Court of Human Rights has played a major role over the past 40 or so years in combating arbitrary discrimination on grounds of sex and race and other invidious grounds?
Lord McNally
My Lords, I find that a very helpful contribution. When the question, “Are you in favour of the European Convention on Human Rights?” is asked, certain people will see the word Europe and their eyes will start spinning round. As the noble Lord has pointed out, however, if you ask people, “Do you want built into law protection against the power of the state?”, in the way that he has just illustrated, they will invariably say, “Yes, please”.
Lord Dholakia
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his clear and concise Answer to the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis. Does he accept that Britain has an enviable record in promoting human rights and the rule of law throughout the world? What sort of response does he think he would get from people like Mugabe if we were to withdraw at this stage from the provisions of human rights legislation in this country?
Lord McNally
My noble friend asks a helpful question in putting this matter into perspective. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has quite rightly made human rights, and Britain’s championing of human rights, part of his soft diplomacy strategy. It has been greatly to his credit and to the credit of the United Kingdom. It is important that we have a record that we can be proud of when we look at other regimes and criticise them about their human rights record.
Lord Tomlinson
The Minister gave an unequivocal Answer to the Question about withdrawal. However, can he be equally unequivocal about any plans to dilute the application of the European Convention on Human Rights to things where there is a conflict between the judgment of the court in Strasbourg and the view of a Government in the House of Commons?
Lord McNally
My Lords, I think that “dilute” is the wrong word. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger, pointed out in his interview the other day, the relationship between our Supreme Court and the Strasbourg court is a healthy one of learning from each other and looking at each other’s jurisprudence as it develops. What we have been doing, and one of the proudest things I have been involved in as a Minister, was the Brighton conference on the workings of the court which looked at how we can build in a subsidiarity to take notice of the importance of national supreme courts while still retaining the strength and the moral authority of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Lord Faulks
My Lords, whether human rights are best protected by the Supreme Court, by Parliament or by Strasbourg, all noble Lords are anxious to protect them. However, even human rights have a cost. Public authorities are spending a great deal of money trying to make their policies compliant with the convention—rather like with health and safety—when the Strasbourg jurisprudence is extremely uncertain. The diminishing pot of legal aid is being spent on often unmeritorious cases about human rights, rather than on far more meritorious cases. I was one of the commissioners, and we were not allowed to consider questions of cost. I ask the Minister whether the Government, in the whole human rights debate, could tell us how much human rights is costing.
Lord McNally
I am not able to put a cost to human rights any more than to anything else. I see in government—and I suppose that we have a lot of experience of local government in this House—how agents of the state, as the noble Lord said, when making decisions have in the back of their mind that they have to clear certain hurdles about respect for the individual citizen. To me, this is a prize beyond cost.
Lord Beecham
Can the Minister match his welcome, unequivocal statement that there is no intention to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights on the question of repeal of the Human Rights Act? Will he confirm that the Government have no intention to seek to repeal the Act?
Lord McNally
Both publicly and privately, I sense that there is no majority in this Parliament in favour of repeal of the Human Rights Act. If an individual party at the next election wants to put repeal in its manifesto, that is its privilege and right, and it will have to take that to the hustings. It will not be in the manifesto of the Liberal Democrats.
Arrangement of Business
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like to make a short Statement about business. My noble friend the Leader of the House has today made the usual Written Statement to announce that the Queen will be pleased to open a new Session of Parliament in state on Wednesday 8 May. Parliament will be prorogued in the usual way a few days before the start of that new Session, on a date to be announced once the progress of our remaining business is certain.
I have one further announcement. When I announced last October a set of provisional recess dates up to January 2014, I made it clear that those dates were subject to the progress of business. Business has indeed progressed, and I am therefore today adding a week to the Easter Recess. We will now rise for Easter at the end of Wednesday 27 March, as anticipated, but we will return on 22 April.
Business of the House
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
That the debate on the Motion in the name of Baroness Stowell of Beeston set down for today shall be limited to four hours and that in the name of Lord Wallace of Saltaire to two hours.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, I beg to move the Motion in the name of my noble friend Lord Hill of Oareford. The Motion relates to the debates today, and perhaps I may refer to each debate separately.
I refer first to the debate which celebrates International Women’s Day. I regret that on the notice that has gone round to all Peers, there is a printing error at the very end about speaking times. For Back-Benchers, I promise that it makes no difference whatever. I hope that the House will agree that the changes are all to the good because they give the Front-Benchers more time. My noble friend Lady Stowell of Beeston will now have 20 minutes instead of 15 for opening. She may not need to take it all; we will see. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, will now have 12 minutes instead of 10 when she winds for the opposition Front Bench. I am sure that she will need all that time; she is expert on these matters. My noble friend Lady Northover is now permitted 25 minutes instead of 20.
I also have what I hope may be welcome news with regard to the second debate. We tried to give as much notice as possible so that Back-Bench speakers could prepare their speeches to the full, and we gave notice that Back-Benchers would have five minutes. Yesterday, however, there was a sudden flurry of interest and names were added to the list. I now beg the leave of the House to make a manuscript amendment, in a sense, to my own Leader’s Motion, so that the second debate should run for two and a half hours, not two. This means that we can keep our promise to Back-Benchers that all Back-Bench speeches will remain at five minutes per person. It makes no difference to the Front Benches throughout, but it means that we can keep the promise to Back-Benchers of five minutes for their speeches.
Standing Orders (Public Business)
(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Hill of Oareford
That the standing orders relating to public business be amended as follows:
International Women’s Day
(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Stowell of Beeston
That this House takes note of International Women’s Day 2013.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
My Lords, it is an enormous privilege to introduce the International Women’s Day debate. In the same debate two years ago I made what was then my second speech in your Lordships’ House. I seem to recall the noble Lords present taking a sharp intake of breath when I said then that I had only very recently become familiar with International Women’s Day. My saying that betrayed two things. The first is that, unlike so many Members of this House, I have no claim to involvement in the fantastic advances that have been made in support of women over the past 100 years. Indeed, I feel a great sense of humility when I look down the list of speakers today.
Of course, many other Members of this House—too many to mention—have campaigned hard and achieved so much for the rights of women over the years. However, I would like to mention two Baronesses by name who we have sadly lost from this House over the past year: my late friend Lady Ritchie of Brompton, who founded Women2Win and helped so many women in my own party become MPs; and the late Lady McFarlane of Llandaff, who was one of nursing’s great pioneers and, indeed, the first nurse to become a life Peer.
Secondly, my rather shocking remark betrayed that, unlike many other countries, we here in the UK have not got into the habit of using International Women’s Day simply to celebrate women. In fact, I was talking to some Italian women the other day, who told me that in Italy the men shower them with mimosas on this day. Now, I am especially pleased that six noble Lords of the male variety have joined us, but I reassure them that we are not expecting flowers; I would not want to overburden them coming so soon after Valentine’s day and just before Mothering Sunday. Seriously, though, I am pleased that this is not a women-only debate. We will be discussing issues that affect women, but we cannot address them without the support and input of men.
Today’s debate is a chance for us to draw attention to the serious challenges that women still face here and around the world. Last night, my noble friend here with me on the Front Bench today responded to a very powerful debate about the ongoing use of sexual violence as a weapon of war. This morning we have already responded to Questions, some of them rather interesting, about a range of inequalities affecting women. I am sure that some of these matters, as well as many others, will be raised again, and my noble friend Lady Northover will be pleased to respond to them.
As the person opening today’s debate, I will focus on women and their careers, or more specifically on what we are doing to ensure that we better utilise the talents and skills of all women, whoever they are, wherever they come from and whatever they do. I want to celebrate the contribution of women and talk about how we can support them in achieving their full potential.
The challenges facing women today are very different from those that women faced in the 20th century. We know that in the past British society did not see much value in educating girls. Indeed, this is sadly still true in some parts of the world, as Malala Yousafzai’s ordeal at the hands of the Taliban has shown all too graphically. Here, girls now outperform boys in nearly every subject at nearly every stage of school, yet too many girls lack confidence, self-esteem and ambition.
In the past, women were banned from universities. Now, more young women than young men go to university, yet there are still too many subjects where a female face is rare. As we all know, it was legal in the past to pay women less than men for the same work. Women were barred from too many professions entirely. Getting married could mean losing your job; I will not even mention having a baby. Now we have some of the most comprehensive anti-gender discrimination legislation in the world, yet the gender pay gap remains and women continue to be underrepresented in positions of power and leadership.
It is clear that the way we respond to these very complex modern-day challenges needs a sophisticated, modern approach. The solutions cannot be found simply in more laws, regulations and targets. Of course, finding the solutions is not easy when there is little money around. I realise that women will wonder how we can make their lives better when we also have to make significant cuts in public spending. The truth is that it is not easy, but there are things we can do and are doing.
I will not go through the whole list, but the kinds of measures I am talking about for those on the lowest incomes and most in need include lifting more than 1 million of the lowest-paid workers out of income tax altogether, the majority of whom are women. We will also increase child tax credit by £180 above inflation for low to middle-income families. Where we can we are spending money in ways that empower women and give them real choice and control over their lives.
The top issue that comes up time and again for women is balancing work and family life. Our current inflexible system of maternity and paternity leave makes it incredibly difficult to break down the stereotypical and intrinsic view that women should stay at home and look after the children and men should go out to work and earn the money when a couple start a family. What if the mother earns more? What if she is in a more senior position than the father? What if the father simply wants to take on more of the caring responsibilities? In our modern world the state should not make it harder for parents to choose the best arrangements for their children.
That is why, after an extensive consultation, we announced last November that from 2015 we will introduce a new system of shared parental leave that will make an enormous difference to working women who want to have children. It will mean that if fathers want to take on more of a role, they can. If mothers want to return to work earlier, they can. If parents want to spend some time at home together around the birth of their child, they can. Parents will have a choice.
Crucially, albeit over time, the new parental leave arrangements and the access to flexible working for all employees—the other initiative that we recently announced—will put men and women on a level playing field in the workplace. Employers will no longer be able to assume that only women take a career break to look after their children. For my part, that was one of the biggest things that sold this policy to me.
Until that time arrives, we are also determined to help working women by boosting childcare wherever and whenever we can, especially to those who need it most. This includes but is not limited to 15 free hours a week in a nursery or with a childminder for all three and four year-olds. From September this year that will be extended to two year-olds from the most disadvantaged homes.
Even in flexible and family-friendly workplaces, women can still hit the glass ceiling, so we are working with employers to ensure that there really is no limit to how far women can go in their careers. We have just been talking about women on boards, and as a result of the fantastic work by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, to increase that number, the number of FTSE 100 all-male boards has now halved, and since last March 40% of new appointments to boards have been women —up from 13% in 2010.
There is, however, a pipeline issue for women in executive roles. Our Think, Act, Report initiative to improve transparency on pay and wider workplace equality is helping to make a difference. Employers who sign up make a commitment to identify any barriers to women in their organisation, to take action to address them, and finally to report publicly on their progress. The transparent reporting bit of the scheme is a particularly powerful tool with which to achieve change.
Since the initiative was launched just over a year ago, 73 organisations have signed up. In total, they employ more than 1 million people and include firms such as Marks & Spencer, Tesco, BT, EDF and BP. As of today, they have been joined by the Chartered Management Institute, which has more than 90,000 members and huge outreach to other employers. However, we are not stopping there. Because we recognise that we do not have all the answers, last year we established a Women’s Business Council, made up of exceptionally high achievers in business, to provide advice to government on what we can do to maximise women’s contribution to our future economic growth. It is comprehensively examining the evidence, from the issues and choices facing girls in school right through to the experiences of older women who need to continue working into their retirement but who face diminishing options in the labour market. That council is due to report to the Government later this year.
We need to encourage all women to aspire to and be ambitious for success, but too many young women still do not have the confidence to follow their dreams and, even more distressingly, too many do not have dreams at all. We are trying to change this through measures such as our pupil premium to help schools better support their disadvantaged pupils and close the attainment gap between them and their peers. We are working with schools, advertising, retail and the media to improve perceptions of body image through our Body Confidence campaign so that more young women realise their future will be defined by their talent, hard work and abilities, not by what they look like.
We are encouraging women to choose more of the STEM subjects at A-level and university that will allow them to flourish in today’s economy, and we are giving them the skills they need to succeed. Noble Lords might be interested to know that last year, for the first time, more women started an apprenticeship than men, but let me say something about aspiration, ambition and success, about which I feel very strongly. There are many definitions of success. It is vital that we have more women in positions of power, whether in business or politics. We want those women on boards. We need more women around the Cabinet table, as the Prime Minister said very recently.
However, we must not forget that many women have no desire for that kind of success. They might want to run their own business instead or be a doctor specialising in a particular field of medicine. Just because people who work in Parliament enjoy power, we must not think that everyone else does. We have to be honest here: there are also many women for whom reaching the top of the tree is not a realistic ambition. By concentrating so much on the high achievers, or telling people to aim for the very top, I worry that sometimes, without meaning to, we diminish other people’s achievements and even discourage them from being ambitious at all.
I would like to recount a story about a friend of mine called Julie. She is an undertaker. She is roughly the same age as me and left school with little in the way of formal qualifications, so was put on what we then called a YOP scheme. I am sure she will not mind my sharing this story with the House. On her first day at work, she thought that the funeral company’s office was a car showroom when she turned up because of all the big black cars outside. After a few false starts and once she had got over the shock that she was working at a funeral director’s, she knuckled down and started to progress up the undertaker ladder.
After a few years, Julie was put in charge of its new Beeston branch, which included arranging funerals. That is a difficult task, as it means talking to people when they are at their most vulnerable. However, she was good at it, so much so that the family of a teenage boy who had been killed in a dreadful accident requested that Julie direct the funeral as well and be the person leading the cortege. She had never done that before and it was a massive step. Because the family insisted that she did this, the firm quickly rustled up a uniform for her and she did it. She was magnificent. She was so proud and walked through Beeston in front of that hearse as if she had been doing it for years. As she had been so successful, she was given that additional responsibility and started to build a strong personal reputation throughout the town. Word got around that she was very dedicated and good at her job. After a further few years, after she had a short maternity break, she tried to return to work but unfortunately was not able to agree mutual terms at her old firm, and that was that; at least, it could have been.
Not many avenues were open to Julie and it would have been easy for her to enter a system that led to nowhere. After a while, however, she spotted some premises which she thought would make an ideal funeral home. With the support of people who knew her reputation and that she was a sound investment, she set up her own funeral directing business. That was five years ago and the business is now thriving, so much so that she keeps six people employed in full-time work and provides regular casual work to another four.
I told you Julie’s story to make this simple point; she is as much a role model to the young women of Beeston as I might like to think I can be. As much as we want all girls to be ambitious at school and aspire to great things, because that is the most secure route to success, those who do not can still achieve their own very worthwhile version of success if they aim to be the best at whatever they find themselves doing.
Tomorrow is International Women’s Day, and the Government are doing a range of things to mark the event. We are, very simply, celebrating all women. I hope all noble Lords will join us, and I look forward to all the contributions that will be made today, especially from the right reverend Prelate, who has chosen a debate about women to make his maiden speech, which I am sure will be very interesting. I beg to move.
Lord Parekh
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston, for securing and introducing this debate, which she has done marvellously. As we celebrate International Women’s Day, I want to introduce a note of caution. It is quite common to talk about “the woman”, which leads one to think that all societies think of women in more or less the same way. Coming as I do from India and as a student of developing societies, I suggest that it would be a great mistake to homogenise or essentialise the woman. The woman comes in many roles: she comes as a mother, as a daughter, as a wife and also as a companion. In some civilisations, woman as a daughter is not much valued and is disposed of in arranged and other marriages. Woman as a mother, however, is the subject of enormous power and considerable authority. This is what happens in India. So if one looked at women simply from the standpoint of what happens to daughters in arranged marriages, one would be inclined to think that women do not enjoy equality. However, this makes it very difficult to explain why India or Sri Lanka or other developing countries had women Prime Ministers long before we did and long before any western country. If women were treated as inferior or unequal, why should India, for example, have more women in the highest positions, as vice-chancellors in universities or as Cabinet Ministers? The explanation is that, as I said earlier, the woman can be seen in many different roles, and as long as she is seen as the mother figure she wields considerable power and authority. Women, while suffering from inequality at one level, enjoy equality at another and the picture becomes much more complex.
The other point to bear in mind is that, for some reason that I do not have time to explore, the equality of women in our civilisation—certainly after the war—has gone in hand with sexualisation of the woman, and this has created all kinds of problems. On the other hand, in non-western societies it has gone hand in hand with desexualisation because if a woman is seen as the mother then, obviously, she is not seen as an object of sexual desire. In India, a woman in a position of authority has to conceal her sexual charm if she is going to carry any kind of authority, as has happened to every Prime Minister or happens to women in any other position of authority. Here the opposite tends to happen, with the result that cultural historians and sociologists have introduced a new concept called “erotic capital”. The argument is that having charming, good-looking, beautiful women under a certain age in positions of authority generates the business a certain amount of capital and brings good will and customers who are attracted by the ambience. That sort of thing has gone hand in hand with the sexualisation of the body and the woman in the context of equality. This relationship is contingent. It need not have happened but it has happened. It has been a source of considerable worry, and those of us who are extremely anxious to fight for equality for women in all spheres—natural, spontaneous equality in ordinary relations, not just equality of rights—would have to engage in a deeper cultural critique to make sure that a woman is not understood in this way.
Having got rid of this general point, which has been exercising me for some time, I want to concentrate on what happens in our own country. The following percentages of women in positions of power in our society are striking: Members of Parliament, 22%; the House of Lords, 21.7%; the Cabinet, 17.4%, but the figure keeps changing; local authority council leaders, 12%, but local authority chief executives, 23%; senior ranks of the judiciary, 13.6%; heads of professional bodies, 33%; university vice-chancellors, 14%; academics in general, including lecturers, senior lecturers and readers, 35%; professors, 20%; editors of national newspapers, 5%; directors of FTSE 100 companies, 16%; elected mayors, 13%; senior management in the Civil Service, 31%, but Permanent Secretaries, 16%; heads of primary schools, 71%; heads of secondary schools, 38%; and heads of independent schools, 11.9%.
I have given those figures because I want to draw four important conclusions from them. First, if a position happens to be elected, the chances of women being underrepresented are considerable. Secondly, there is no difficulty at the bottom level of a profession because women are represented there in proportion to their presence in the population. As you go higher up to the middle level, there does not seem to be much of a problem either, but there is suddenly a narrow pyramid at the top. Thirdly, there is underrepresentation at the top in the private sector compared to the public sector. Fourthly, women’s representation is very poor and they are only just beginning to break through in new areas such as TV journalism or as editors of national newspapers. This tells us where we need to concentrate. Although it is striking that progress is being made in all those areas, we still have a long way to go.
Why is this the case? Whether in elected bodies or people at the top, why is this kind of inequality persisting after all the attempts? My own study tells me that four or five factors play an important part. First is of course the conscious or unconscious bias of males in positions of power. They, for all the kinds of reasons that I mentioned earlier about the way in which female equality is understood, feel uncomfortable or threatened by female presence. There is also the question of women themselves feeling slightly diffident and therefore not displaying, or playing to, their strengths as well as they could. Thirdly, there is the culture of the organisations, which, being male-dominated, sets certain norms, and women feel intimidated or unwelcome in those organisations. Fourthly, there is the question of family responsibility. In spite of all the talk, it is women who carry the family, with the result that women are not to be seen in many branches of the medical profession, with which I am familiar. For example, women generally tend to avoid those courses in medicine or those areas of employment where they might be required at any time or where there could be an acute emergency. There are therefore a large number of women in ophthalmology, but there are very few in general surgery or acute medicine.
The fifth and final point to bear in mind is that the male historically has been the standard of reference and, therefore, the criterion by which to decide how an organisation should be structured, who should be appointed and who should not be. As a result, for example, in many cases a male on an appointment panel would say: “This particular candidate is not decisive or partisan enough, because that is what an organisation requires”. The result is that women, who are not generally pushy, partisan or aggressive and are more concerned to compromise, tend to be under- appreciated and not appointed.
Baroness Brinton
My Lords, I declare my interest as a trustee of Christian Blind Mission. Antoinette Androis, a young woman living in the Democratic Republic of Congo, suffered the devastating loss of a child a few years ago. Forced out of her home for over six years, pregnant Antoinette was left to give birth on a few banana leaves out in the bush. Shortly after cutting the umbilical cord with a machete, Antoinette's husband and some women from the village watched helplessly as the baby girl died in front of them. Antoinette’s latest pregnancy, in 2011, was completely different from her experience in the bush. Thanks to access to a clean delivery kit, distributed to women in the Ituri and South Kivu provinces by Medair and UNFPA, Antoinette was admitted to a health centre and gave birth in a maternity ward assisted by a trained health worker. This time her child survived.
In 2009, the Liberal Democrats reaffirmed their manifesto commitment, which was subsequently incorporated into the coalition agreement, to guarantee giving 0.7% of our gross domestic product in international aid. This aid will save the lives of 50,000 mothers and 250,000 babies by 2015. It has already saved the lives of women like Antoinette and her child, who directly benefit from UK involvement in international organisations like Medair. I am proud to say that today the UK is on target to meeting its commitment.
In 2000, as a signatory to the UN millennium development goals, we pledged to improve maternal heath and reduce child mortality, among other goals, by 2015. The international community has certainly taken big steps forward in tackling each of these eight goals and it is important to recognise the successes. For example, both the goals of reducing by half extreme poverty and the number of people without proper access to safe drinking water have already been met by these efforts. However, we cannot forget that while progress has certainly been made, data that have been disaggregated by sex tell us a grimmer story of continued inequality for women around the world, most notably in sub-Saharan Africa.
In the poorest households in nearly every country in this region, wage earners are more likely to be women than men. UN Women reports further that even when women have access to work, they are,
“often faced with low income and lack of job security and benefits”.
A lack of access to financial resources can have a direct impact on the likelihood of a mother and child surviving a pregnancy. In many places in sub-Saharan Africa, as in the Democratic Republic of Congo where Antoinette gave birth, overcrowded and underfunded health centres lack sufficient supplies, requiring expectant mothers to provide basic materials like soap, gloves, a razor blade and even a sheet, which are needed to ensure a clean delivery. Women who are unable to afford these supplies or who have not received a clean delivery kit provided by international aid organisations are often turned out to give birth in the bush without assistance because the health centre simply cannot accommodate them or even provide the basic kit.
The three primary causes of maternal death in sub-Saharan Africa—haemorrhage, sepsis and eclampsia —can all be prevented or managed by trained health professionals in a clean environment. However, most clinics are understaffed and overwhelmed by an increasing indigent patient load. The hospital in Boga, where Antoinette gave birth, provides healthcare for over 30,000 internally displaced people who have fled armed conflict. In attempting to treat as many patients as possible, the clinic lacks funding for basic supplies, and thus the burden of the cost of giving birth is transferred to the expectant mothers, who are already struggling with unimaginable poverty.
This cycle can be broken by the continued commitment of the international community, including our Government, to provide funding to programmes that address the two central concerns of women’s health: poverty and training. Through a continued focus on millennium development goal 1 to eradicate extreme poverty, this time for women as well as men, women who would normally be unable to afford even the most basic supplies for a delivery will be able gain access to health clinics.
Secondly, through continued involvement with the UNFPA and Medair to meet millennium development goals 4 and 5, a greater number of health clinic employees and midwives can receive proper training, which will significantly reduce mother and child mortality. Access to training will also provide job opportunities for women in these areas, and through supporting these programmes we can set off a new cycle of training and employment instead of poverty and poor health.
Maternal care must extend beyond the birth of the child. A lack of access to adequate postnatal care can be devastating to women like Dorotea from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. Dorotea was a teenager when she became pregnant with her first child. Unable to afford to go to a hospital, she was forced to give birth in her home without assistance from a trained health worker. Neither Dorotea nor her mother realised that the umbilical cord had got wrapped around the baby’s neck, and after four agonising days of labour, her daughter was stillborn.
Dorotea’s heartache continued two days later, when she realised that the stress of the labour had caused her to develop an obstetric fistula—a hole between the bladder and the rectum where the baby’s head had crushed the tissue. Because of her condition she was deserted by her husband, beaten and abused, and she was unable to work or seek help. For 18 years Dorotea suffered the embarrassment and isolation of her condition until one day her sister happened upon an advertisement for Christian Blind Mission services. Her fistula was repaired after 30 minutes of surgery in Dar es Salaam.
Dorotea now has the chance of a normal life, and is even able to have more children, but, thanks to CBM and the services she got, she was given the most important gift of her life: her dignity. CBM and many other organisations continue to set up clinics around the world for women suffering from obstetric fistula, providing them with essential postnatal care unavailable in their local hospitals.
According to the United Nations Population Fund, a woman’s risk of maternal death in the Democratic Republic of Congo is one in 24. In the United Kingdom, the risk of death is one in 47,000. I congratulate this Government on their continued commitment to the pledge of giving 0.7% of GDP in aid, which not only sets an example to our global colleagues that it can be done but, more importantly, will make a real difference and help to reduce maternal deaths.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, listening to the range of subjects covered already, it is quite clear that there is no shortage of issues to do with achieving equal opportunities for women that we can debate today. I fear the road to achieving equal opportunities is a long one and will continue to provide ample material for speeches on International Women’s Day for many years to come, before the goals that we are all seeking are at last achieved to everyone’s satisfaction. I will confine my remarks to two issues: women at the top, which has been covered already today; and women in the penal system.
I will start with women at the top. Clearly, the 2011 report by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Abersoch, Women on Boards, was a major step forward. It reflected what had become, at last, a cross-party agreement; that is, that percentage targets for female company board directors should be set and backed by compulsion if voluntary efforts continued to fail. For the FTSE 300 companies, this involved both targets and a requirement to set out detailed plans of how their percentage of women would be achieved. The aim for the FTSE 100 companies was to achieve a full 25% representation by the same date, 2015—but that is only 25%.
However, there has been significant progress. All-male FTSE 100 boards have fallen from 21% to 7%, as we have already heard. Without doubt, too, the annual published updates of the noble Lord, Lord Davies, on the progress of these companies will certainly keep things moving in the right direction. However, for this debate, it was helpful to hear from the Minister about the plans the Government have to ensure that a satisfactory supply of qualified women candidates are aware of, and trained for, these opportunities at appropriate earlier stages in their life. Education in their school years will of course be vital and relevant careers advice is absolutely essential. Girls’ interests and aptitudes need to be taken into account, but so do national and international employment trends and, more locally, the likelihood of job vacancies and remuneration levels.
It would be useful, too, to know what further action the Government are planning to take to encourage employers to allow men as well as women to work flexibly or part-time, thereby opening up more opportunities for women as well as men to continue their careers while their children are young.
However, we all know that the percentage of women at board level is not the whole story. It is also about those other areas where power exists, whether for good or evil, a subject we have heard rather too much about during the past few weeks. It is here that the Sex and Power 2013: Who Runs Britain? report, which has already been referred to, tells rather a different story about women at the top. We learn from that, as well as the figures we have already been given, that women have slipped from 33rd to 57th place in international power rankings since 2001. So it would be helpful to hear a little more about the plans and priorities the Government will be pursuing to help increase the percentage of women featured in all categories ranked in Sex and Power.
Turning to women in the penal system, I want to draw urgent attention to the continued neglect by our criminal justice system of women held behind bars. In the UK we imprison more women than almost any other western European country. Decades of research and reports testify to the disproportionate harm that this does to women themselves, their children, families and the wider community. Although women comprise just 5% of the prison population, they account for a third of all self-harm incidents in prison, and every year nearly 18,000 children are affected by the imprisonment of their mothers. Just think of the range of the ways in which they and their future lives are affected.
About 13,500 women are sent to prison every year. One in seven of these women are foreign national prisoners, and recent research has shown that many of these women have been trafficked into the country and coerced into offending. Many of them have been subjected to appalling abuse and multiple rapes but are too terrified to report these crimes. They also have little English. However, only a quarter of these women have been identified and are referred through the national mechanism for the help and support to which they are entitled as victims of trafficking.
Seventy per cent of women entering prison every year in the UK are on remand. Most of these women have committed non-violent and petty offences for which they will not ultimately receive a custodial sentence. Many are imprisoned for breach of a community order, meaning they are sent to prison, often for a very short period and often for not turning up to appointments because of childcare responsibilities.
Women’s offending is linked to underlying mental health problems and a history of child abuse and domestic violence. Thirty per cent of women in prison have had a previous psychiatric admission, while more than a third of those who are sent to prison have previously attempted suicide. These women need help to turn their lives around, not imprisonment in conditions that make it impossible for them to take responsibility and address the causes of their offending. I welcome the new programme from the Prison Reform Trust, supported by the Pilgrim Trust, to reduce women’s imprisonment, as well as excellent organisations such as Eden House and the ISIS women’s centre in Gloucester. I want to stress how important it is to bring all these schemes together and publicise them well so that everyone around the country will see them as ways forward.
Alas, I have to end on a less happy note. Your Lordships’ House was able to secure an amendment to the Crime and Courts Bill that would have ensured the necessary statutory requirement to provide community support and supervision services designed with the particular needs of women in mind. Sadly, I have to report that the amendment was struck out in Committee in another place. I only hope and pray that somehow the Government will see sense on this. It is time that all the hard work in this direction by the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, which resulted in her report, is put into action. We have put this off for far too long.
The Lord Bishop of Coventry
My Lords, I am immensely grateful for the kindness that I have received from your Lordships on entering this House, and for the support that I have been given at all levels by its staff. I am delighted to be able to make my maiden speech during this moving debate to mark International Women’s Day. I hope that I may be permitted to say something about my diocese and the interests that it has shaped in me, in ways that relate to the debate.
I begin by paying warm tribute to my excellent women clergy colleagues who give of themselves with extraordinary dedication to the people of Coventry and Warwickshire. Thirty per cent of my priests are women. They work tirelessly and with great skill for the good of their communities. The Church will need their like to guide its life as our bishops in the future, and I assure your Lordships that the present House of Bishops is impatient for the collegiality of women as bishops, including their presence in this House. The absence of women on these Benches today is, of course, particularly noticeable. We are committed to seeing this happen for the good of church and nation. There are also countless lay readers, church wardens—including the indomitable warden of Idlicote, the parish of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe—treasurers, youth and children’s workers, and Mothers’ Union members of all ages. That is an army of women who tend their communities through the ministry of the church in innumerable and often hidden ways across our 200 parishes.
The common life of Coventry and Warwickshire depends on the leadership of women in every other sphere—in political and civic life, business activity and public institutions, the arts and sport and in the myriad charities and agencies that care for those in need and raise the quality of our life together. It was notable that at our recent Pride of Coventry and Warwickshire Community Awards, six of the seven prizes were awarded to women, all of them remarkable people.
Noble Lords should know, though, that the recession is biting hard in Coventry and that it is women who are bearing a disproportionate load. The churches in Coventry have fed 18,000 people since our food bank was established in 2011, many of them families with young children. There are regular stories of mothers going without food in order to feed their children; almost one in four of the city’s children are said to be living in poverty.
However, it is the history of Coventry, framed through war and reconciliation, to which I would like to turn, especially the effects of violent conflict on women. Noble Lords will know that although International Women’s Day had its origins in the movement for women’s suffrage, during the First World War its focus shifted to the struggle against war—war waged, through so much of history, by men but suffered by women and their children, as in Syria today. My own grandmother was one of those women who suffered and died in the First World War, running down the steps of a London Underground station fleeing a Zeppelin raid in 1917. She was pregnant, and my father was left motherless, the only child of a single father who was so overwhelmed that he turned to his own mother to care for his son. She did a pretty good job. He died a few years ago, before I was made Bishop of Coventry, and I had no idea of course that I would be speaking today. He would have been 100 years old this coming Sunday.
Two decades later, in 1940, many women died in the Luftwaffe raids in Coventry. Instinctive Christian convictions in Coventry cried out for an end to the spiral of violence, calling not for retaliation but for a reaching out to the enemy, armed only with the words of Christ, “Father, forgive”—words that confess a common complicity in war, that were etched into the east wall of the ruined cathedral and that continue to speak eloquently to the violence of the world. The ruins of the cathedral destroyed in 1940 were redesignated in 2011 as a memorial to all civilians killed, injured or traumatised by war and violent conflict. The Minister will be glad to know that, as one of six themes that guide the reconciliation ministry of Coventry Cathedral, we are working to support those who stand up against the use of sexual violence as a strategic means to demoralise, degrade and control the perceived enemy. It is a shame on our world that such things happen, and I welcome the commitment of the Foreign Secretary and his office to document and hold to account those responsible, as well as recent announcements of the Secretary of State for International Development and her office.
Coventry convictions in 1940 did not save the people of Kiel, Berlin, Dresden and other German cities, where tens of thousands of women suffered and died. Relationships between the cities were restored, though, and it is an enormous privilege as Bishop of Coventry to step into this remarkable story of reconciliation. To be asked as an English bishop to give a blessing in the now rebuilt Frauenkirche in Dresden on the anniversary of its destruction is deeply humbling and healing. In another act of extraordinary generosity, I have been asked to preach at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtnis-Kirche in November, when it marks the 70th anniversary of its destruction. While there, I will pay my respects to the German memorial for victims of war and violence—Käthe Kollwitz’s desperately sad statue of the weeping mother holding her dead son.
Through these encounters and the friendships that have developed in Coventry’s international Community of the Cross of Nails, I have learnt the importance of remembering the suffering of war together with those with whom we were once locked in conflict, and of commemorating our dead together. As we approach 2014 with its anniversaries of great and terrible battles 100 years ago, my hope is that our local and national commemorations will remember that the tears of German widows and mothers flowed with the same agony as those of British and Commonwealth women. It is alongside and with our former enemy, who is now our friend, that we reflect with Germany and our European partners on the impact of war on our continent and share a commitment for a reconciled and peaceful future for the world.
Baroness Heyhoe Flint
My Lords, I extend our warmest welcome to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry to this House. The emotion, eloquence and relevance of his maiden speech certainly captured the attention of his new congregation here in this Chamber. The right reverend Prelate lists on his very worthy CV a plethora of patronages of a wide variety of causes and charities. His parliamentary interests list higher education plus conflict resolution and reconciliation; one hopes that in this Chamber he has little conflict resolution but plenty of reconciliation. As a fellow West Midlander, which is perhaps why I have been asked to do this welcome, I also wish the right reverend Prelate better fortune to his diocese football team. Coventry City struggles on and off the pitch, and may the right reverend Prelate’s inspiration help to return the Sky Blues to a higher place.
I am sure that, like me, the right reverend Prelate has beliefs that women deserve a much higher level of recognition in sport and recreation, which hopefully should then encourage a more active lifestyle among UK females. Let us start at the top. I was intrigued on Monday to read new research by the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation that only 22% of board members in 33 out of 57 national governing bodies are female— up 2% from 2010, unchanged from 2011—despite government urging. Six publicly funded NGBs out of those 57 have no women on their boards, as was mentioned earlier in Oral Questions. The largest participant offender was British cycling, despite the impact that British women cyclists made in the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Indeed, only a couple of weeks ago 21 year-old Becky James made a further impact for British cycling when she dashed into the record books when she won her second gold and a total of four medals in the recent track cycling world championships in Belarus—such an impact, no less, that Becky was featured on the front page, in glorious technicolour, of the Daily Telegraph, so perhaps the media are improving their recognition of our sportswomen, but more on that later.
I am talking not from a feminist standpoint but about a practical, common-sense approach, and I am not just saying that because in cricket I happen to serve on the boards of the England and Wales Cricket Board and the MCC. Even though I am there, still the men are not knitting and making teas in the pavilions of England, if that is what the fear is from the chaps. Diverse leadership is a bonus and women’s board representation, as has been mentioned, should help to unlock the potential of women’s sport, thus promoting higher levels of participation, sponsorship and media profile. As the Minister said this morning, Sport England and UK Sport wish that by 2017 every national governing body will have 25% board representation.
The MCC and the ECB have grasped the nettle and now the Football Association also has recently appointed its first female independent director to its board in 150 years, so we are making progress. She is Heather Rabbatts, not a token appointment but a lady well steeped in the business of football knowledge as executive deputy chair of Millwall Football Club, to whom I apologise after they were beaten 2-0 on Tuesday by my beloved football team, Wolverhampton Wanderers.
With a Government committed to breaking down gender equality barriers, how can the Royal and Ancient, the governing body of golf throughout the world, continue to operate a male-only membership of its club at St Andrews when this summer it is hosting the Women’s British Open championships? Such an entrenched attitude reminds me of a historic notice in a car park in an all-male golf club in Kent several years ago that read, “No dogs or women allowed on the course”—and it was true. Another discriminatory establishment drawn to my attention recently is Gathurst club in Lancashire, where the men will not let women on the course at weekends unless they are playing competitions, and the men will not allow women to play such sanctioned competitions.
My right honourable friend the Minister for Sport Hugh Robertson has spoken on the record about the R&A, saying:
“It is increasingly anachronistic not to allow women to become members … The defence of the Royal and Ancient is that it is a private club and so has the right to do what it wants. That is legally correct and I have no quarrel, when it is acting as a private club. However, I believe that when a private club fulfils a public function, such as staging a major event, then there is a different slant”.
Nothing could be more major than the Women’s British Open, so surely this issue should be addressed. I wonder if the participants might even be changing in the car park as a result of this sanction.
We all basked in the triumph of the Olympics and Paralympics; media coverage was brilliant, turning minor sports into major sports and unsung, unknown champions into heroes and heroines. Didn’t the girls do well? The women of Team GB won 10 golds and 22 medals in total, and a woman won the first Team GB medal of 2012—silver for Lizzie Armitstead in the road cycling. Women won the first gold for team GB—rowers Helen Glover and Heather Stanning. This was the first Olympics where women competed in every sport, with the introduction of women’s boxing, and we all marvelled at the heroics of Great Britain boxer Nicola Adams, who won gold. It was also the first Games where every country sent female athletes; Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Brunei were the last three to do so. That is global progress.
The Government are seeking to encourage all sectors of the media to continue their high level of coverage of women’s sport, not just every four years when we have the Olympics and Paralympics or when Wimbledon comes along annually. We need that consistent coverage to develop role models for young schoolgirls, who I worry nowadays aspire to be footballers’ wives, page three models or “X-Factor” wannabes singing out of tune. I want those young girls to aspire to be Victoria Pendleton, Jessica Ennis, Ellie Simmonds and Katherine Grainger. After the Olympics, 81% of respondents to a Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation survey thought that female athletes were much better role models for young girls than other media “celebrities”.
The right honourable Maria Miller, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and Minister for Women and Equalities, believes strongly in the power of the media to raise profile and encourage greater levels of sponsorship for women. After the Olympics she wrote and met with all facets of the media to impress this fact.
There is light at the end of the camera lens that there may be extra coverage. There is to be TV coverage of women’s football this summer, the England appearance in the Euro finals, while Sky gave great coverage to women’s cricket in India, even though England did not quite come up with the goods, as they say. They also have platforms for netball super league, women’s hockey and European and USA women’s golf.
Women’s sport receives less than 5% of total sport print coverage and currently receives less than 1% of TV coverage and 0.5% of total sponsorship income. A recent Sport and Recreation Alliance report revealed only one in 10 14 year-old girls is getting the recommended physical activity levels suggested by health professionals. Sadly, 51% of girls say that their experiences of school sport and physical education put them off being active. Sport does not need to be team games; it can be competitive sport, non-competitive sport, gymnastics, aerobics or Indian dancing—though I am not sure the Prime Minister approves of that. My experiences at school were the other way around: I hated academia and sport was the only thing for my whole life.
Primary school teachers receive only a meagre six to 10 hours’ tuition in their training to teach youngsters in primary schools. Surely more is needed. On Tuesday this week an alarming report published in The Lancet showed that we have dropped from 12th to 14th in the life expectancy tables. I must close now but could my noble friends the Ministers in Government ask whether it is possible to give more recognition to women’s sport and women’s activity? What better, on International Women’s Day?
Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, for her introduction to this debate. I know that she has had a heavy week, and I hope that this will relieve her spirits somewhat. I know that the debate will be, as always, both stimulating and thoughtful. It is a great pleasure to follow my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Heyhoe-Flint. Unfortunately, I cannot call her my noble friend because she is not on the same side as me, but for years she and I have campaigned for girls and women—indeed, young people—to be involved in sport. We were comrades some time ago in batting and bowling, and thereby hang many tales. It was also a great privilege to hear the moving comments of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry and to listen to his positive support for the role of women in the Anglican Church.
I want today to look at the issue of invisible women and ponder whether they are becoming more visible. This may seem a strange thing to bring up in your Lordships’ House. When I talk about involvement in this House, everyone always assumes that far more than 24% of noble Lords are women because, as we know, women in this House are far from invisible.
However, let me go back to my theme of invisible women. In the 1980s, a feminist called Dale Spender wrote several challenging books about the lack of profile of women in education, literature and business. She maintained that patriarchy served to subdue women and that they thereby became invisible. She reminded us that there were very few women in some professions and very few at the top of most professions. I want to explore whether this is still an issue. An earlier feminist, Simone de Beauvoir, speculated on why women always seemed to be wrong, why men were more representative and more authoritative and why women’s differences were seen as deficiencies. Is this still the case?
Dale Spender maintained that men and power are the problem. She stated that men are seen as authoritative; that male experience counts; and that males have more influence on systems. Men are attributed with qualities such as reason, objectiveness, leadership, independence, authority and strength; women with being emotional, irrational, weak and hysterical. In mixed contexts, Spender maintains, men talk more, interrupt more and do not know that they are doing it. When women become visible and assert power, then patriarchal values are under threat and it is scary—look at the Suffragettes. In a recent survey, mentioned earlier, reference was made to this. Many women would assert, as do many men, that when the distribution of power is more equal, men also benefit. Some men would agree.
I return to invisibility. I shall give a couple of examples from literature. Spender points out that there were hundreds of women authors writing for at least 150 years before Jane Austen—invisible women. Let us take as an example the successful playwright and novelist, Aphra Behn, writing in the 1600s, who produced plays, poetry and novels that were immensely popular—Nell Gwynne starred in her most successful play, “The Rover”. Aphra Behn was also an international spy for Charles II. She was described by critics as being “disgraceful” and “bawdy”, whereas Virginia Woolf called her, more flatteringly, shady and amorous. Another example is Mary Wollstonecraft, the 18th-century philosopher, who wrote novels, historical plays and travel books, as well as being an advocate of women’s rights. She was described by Walpole as “a Hyena in petticoats”. When six volumes of biographies on women were published in 1803, Mary Wollstonecraft was missed out—invisible women. The novel Mary Barton was published anonymously in 1848 to great praise. When it was known to be by a woman, Elizabeth Gaskell, praise then turned to criticism. Women had to publish under male pseudonyms—invisible women.
Has this invisibility made a difference to how women see themselves today and to why women are still largely absent from top posts in industry, politics, sport, the Church and the media? Has it influenced how men see women? Are women destined for certain jobs but not in the first flight? Much worse than that, can women be treated with disrespect—even violence? Is the status of women also improving life for other women?
I shall share one anecdote with your Lordships. A close female relative of mine went into a boardroom recently to set up a presentation. Three men were already sitting there and one said to her, “Hey, girlie, where’s the coffee?”. He was shocked and embarrassed when she turned out to be a senior vice-president of the company, setting out its future strategy.
The report Sex and Power has already been mentioned. It points out that a girl child born today will be drawing her pension before she has any chance of being equally represented in the Parliament of her country. It discusses other deficits—in public appointments, the voluntary sector, the law, the Church, the police and so on. Two-thirds of public appointments go to men. Women still earn on average 14.9% less than men for the same job and they lose out on bonuses.
A study published in the Daily Telegraph by Experian expresses some cautious optimism, finding that the number of female directors is increasing but that some professions such as social work, hairdressing and primary school teaching, while dominated by women and having more women in senior positions, have not changed in profile. Both men and women seem to back positive action, and women’s networks are flourishing. Women’s performance is enhancing sport, but coverage is poor.
Has progress been made in the perception of women since the 1980s? Are they less invisible? The answer is a cautious yes. On paper they have more rights, and they are more likely to challenge discrimination, but we are a long way from a guarantee that those challenges will be taken note of.
We must not forget in our deliberations that women in many developing countries, as graphically described by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, are hounded, tortured and denied rights. On International Women’s Day, we should surely embrace and promote visibility for all women, justice for all women and an opportunity for all women to reach their potential.
Baroness Benjamin
My Lords, I am delighted to take part in this celebratory International Women’s Day debate, and I thank my noble friend for securing it. I also congratulate the right reverend Prelate on his compassionate maiden speech and welcome him to the House.
This coming Sunday is Mother’s Day, and I pay tribute to mothers everywhere, especially to those who have lost their children unnecessarily through war, gun or knife crime or suicide.
International Women’s Day is to inspire, to celebrate women’s achievements but, most importantly, to focus on issues that women have to confront and the changes that need to take place. In the 1960s, the feminist, bra-burning women’s lib movement set the scene and signalled the beginning of real change towards equality. Hard-working women like my beloved mother made many sacrifices for her daughters in order for them to succeed, and I will be eternally grateful to my mother.
I am proud to say that, today, women are educated, influential and powerful in many areas in society. Not all women—there are those who are still struggling to break through the toughened glass ceiling, especially women from culturally diverse backgrounds. But things have improved dramatically from the days when the careers officer told my mother, “I'm sorry, Mrs Benjamin, your daughter can’t apply for that position. They don’t employ coloured people in that company”. Thank goodness I had a feisty mother who never took no for an answer.
Yes, there has been progress but despite all this women’s equality, as we sit here in the 21st century, on the eve of International Women’s Day, we continue on an almost daily basis to witness revelations of sexual and domestic violence against women, and the sexualisation of young girls in a society where violent pornography is only a mouse click away. This is a pan-global epidemic, underpinned by the media and the internet which support imagery and attitudes that relentlessly promote the idea that social emancipation and free speech equal the freedom to flaunt the boundaries of decency, self-respect and the sanctity of our bodies and souls. Women, especially young women and girls, are the main casualties of this.
No wonder that we witness highly sexualised behaviour by children and young people when they are influenced so strongly to believe that stardom, success, fame, riches and happiness can be achieved by using sex as a commodity. Young boys are learning to see their female counterparts as sexual objects, expected to perform in the same way as they see on porn sites so easily accessible today to anyone with a smartphone, computer or tablet. We now have degrading behaviour by boys who force young girls to perform sexual acts, film the humiliating action and then shame the girls by putting it on the web. The girls in turn self-harm or even take their own lives. This has to stop. The recent NSPCC report, Saying the Unsayable, highlighted a dramatic increase in girls self-harming and committing suicide because of sexual exploitation and degradation.
We are all aware that the sexual exploitation of women is ageless but in recent times the globalisation of media and the internet has led to an explosion in the sexual objectification of women. Women are encouraged, paid, enticed and forced to portray themselves in more and more explicit sexual ways. Young women university students advertise themselves on websites as looking for a sugar daddy, and see this as a perfectly acceptable way of advancing themselves both financially and socially. My main worry is that, while all this is happening every day before our very eyes, children and young people soak up this imagery and accept the messages and culture that they portray as the norm. In the era we are now living in, children and young people lose their innocence far too early as they are exposed relentlessly to this sexual culture, where many young women allow themselves to be exploited, degraded and manipulated.
I tell young women that I mentor never to compromise themselves with their beauty, to respect themselves and keep their dignity intact. It pays off in the long term. We have opened a Pandora’s box and I have no answer as to how we can reverse the trend in the sexual objectification of women or protect our children against its influence. But I know that the global and domestic challenge is for women to join together and lead the fight against this, and stop allowing females to be exploited by the culture of sexualisation—for the sake of their daughters and granddaughters.
Organisations such as the Parent Zone are fighting back. They believe that the internet and technological developments have given women access to economic, social and political opportunities across the world but as mothers they feel disempowered by an environment that ignores their right to protect their children online. Access to their children’s data and images is withheld by companies who have created their children’s online world. There are international laws in place protecting children online. However, mothers are beginning to realise that in the UK their online rights do not match their rights offline. In response to this, the Parent Zone has launched the first Charter of Parents’ Online Rights, calling for the two to be brought into line. The charter calls for parents to have the right to know what data are stored about their child and challenge inaccuracies. They should be able to intervene on behalf of their child if problems arise online, have their consent sought when a child signs up to use an online service and expect minimum safety standards for children’s websites. This is the sort of initiative we must promote and encourage to help parents—especially mothers—fight back against a seemingly unstoppable march into a moral wasteland. I hope that the Government will give support to this initiative.
I tell children when I visit schools to learn to love and respect themselves, have self-esteem and feel worthy even though they may be suffering abuse. They must never feel it is their fault. They must live their lives with integrity, honesty and above all have the moral courage to stand up against those who want to take advantage of them. We must ensure that all children understand the meaning of unconditional love and long-term relationships within which they can enjoy a fulfilling, healthy sexual partnership. We must give our children—boys and girls—the guidance, education and protection they need to achieve this well into their adult lives. As women, we have the power to make the change for good so let us all join forces together and do just that. I say to all women: let us celebrate International Women’s Day and fight for this change, wherever you are in the world.
Baroness O'Loan
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, for her introduction to this debate on International Women’s Day. I also pay tribute to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry for his fine maiden speech and look forward to the erudition, eloquence and compassion that he will bring to debates in this Chamber.
The UN theme for International Women’s Day is, “A promise is a promise: time for action to end violence against women”. Women come to their experience of violence through many routes. Predominantly, they will be victims, either of domestic or war-zone violence. In places such as Northern Ireland, where the Troubles have dominated our lives for so long, that still takes a toll on those who suffered: on the relatives of the dead, the maimed and the families of the disappeared. There will also be those women who decide to take an active part in conflict as combatants: up to 40% of some groups are female. Those women combatants may ultimately be peacemakers. No matter what role they play or position they hold in relation to the conflict, the range of potential effects of violence is similar. It is important to acknowledge that, to acknowledge that violence has so many facets, and to identify what must be done to address them.
I want to address some of those facets. First, there is physical and sexual abuse, and the lack of mechanisms, structures and the necessary determination to prosecute such crimes. Reparations for rape, real property theft and lost educational opportunities when children are taken for camp slaves have to be dealt with quickly and effectively. In many conflicts, the warlords openly acknowledge that they will rape whole villages as a clear statement of the threat that they represent and to force people into compliance. We have seen the abduction of children from their families to be used as child soldiers, including girls. In some conflicts, tens of thousands—some 50% of all child soldiers—are girls. We probably all know the pressures to which children are subject in organisations such as the Lord’s Resistance Army: pressures to murder members of their family and each other as the combatants seek to take total control of them. We have seen the abduction of women and girls to be used as camp slaves.
Each state has a responsibility—as does the international community—to put an end to impunity and to prosecute those responsible for such crimes. That does not happen very often. The consequential exposure to sexually transmitted infection and trauma-related illness give rise to huge medical and PTSD treatment needs That can have an enormous impact on people’s ability to deal with the ordinary challenges of life. They will have higher levels of mental and physical illness, injury and suicide. That is what we have experienced in Northern Ireland.
Displacement from and the loss of their homes is a major problem. These women often end up in IDP and refugee camps for years. Even when the conflict has been resolved to the extent that it is possible for them to go home, they may be reluctant to do so even where there is funding available for them because they have access to health services, education and maybe some protection and security. It has often seemed so terrible yet so understandable to me that they can prefer living in UNHCR tents for years, without electricity or running water, to going home where the impact of the destruction of a local community in terms of unsettled scores, suspicion and resentment may linger for years and where people see the perpetrators of violence walking the streets and even in government, occupying influential and highly paid jobs.
That is part of the price of peace. It can be very hard for those who still seek reparations and the recovery of the disappeared. In Northern Ireland we still have seven families grieving people who were abducted and murdered, and whose bodies lie in unmarked graves that may never be found. For each family this is a daily agony as it remembers the young man or boy who went out one day and never came back.
In conflicted societies one of the biggest barriers to equality for women is often the existence of traditional laws and justice procedures. Women are often not allowed to own property. That will have to change and be a priority in each conflict zone. Where huge numbers of men have died the widows and children risk homelessness and destitution unless change is made. Returning combatants, often traumatised themselves, often bring higher levels of domestic violence.
Issues around demobilisation, decommissioning and resettlement must be dealt with. Women have to fight for their share of funds, as money is normally paid principally to men, who have had front-line posts, leaving a disproportionate amount of the very scarce funds that are available in the hands of men only. There is also the new phenomenon of the vulnerability of some women to fundamentalism and the honour that is perceived as coming to families when one of their number becomes a suicide bomber.
Loss of the opportunity to be educated, because of war, because teachers go to war, or because it is not safe to go to school, impacts on women’s ability to participate in society at all levels. Often they cannot drive, even where motorbikes are about. That means that their capacity to engage in commercial initiatives is limited. Women need, above all, security so that they can access water, food and fuel. In countries where there has been conflict and in others where there is great poverty women will suffer not only violence but all the problems associated with the daily trek for water and fuel, and with the grind to grow food. In those circumstances men may resist attempts to bring water to the community, because their women will then have free time which they may not use as the men would wish.
In times of violence there is also difficulty for women in accessing health and other services, because of costs of travel, time, and the fear and insecurity around travel. Often there is no hospital because of a war, or they cannot afford the fare, they have no access to transport and they are afraid. When you are about to have a baby this can be a time of great need. I lived in Kenya when I was expecting my third child. The rains were coming. It was a 40-kilometre drive up a dirt road to the nearest mission hospital that had no electricity or running water. Yet we knew that we had to go before the rains came. I had that option. The other women in the community did not, because they had no access to a car.
The international community must urgently address the needs of the “UN babies”, born as a consequence of a relationship, prostitution or rape involving UN personnel. These babies may be rejected by their fathers and the societies in which their mothers live simply because they are visibly of a race different from the community in which they live.
These things will involve not just policy change, and planning, training and development, but also changing the hearts and minds of many of those who were the perpetrators of violence and who have lived often for years in abnormal circumstances. There will inevitably be unsettled scores, old hatreds, and a desire for punishment and vengeance that may well have the capacity to destroy an embryonic state. Old combatants will have to come to terms with living at peace with each other. It will take time and energy. Many women have great skills that can be utilised for the benefit of an emerging nation in those matters that require mediation, such as prisoner release, disarmament, resettlement and reintegration.
Gender-responsive policy-making can be life-changing. Gender-responsive changes in the mandates, practices and cultures of states and international institutions are occurring. On International Women’s Day we applaud the courage and determination of women who have emerged to take their rightful place in local and national politics across the world. We meet many of them at Westminster as they travel here to learn more of our practices and procedures, and to be affirmed and encouraged in their role as parliamentarians in situations infinitely more complex and dangerous than those in which we operate. Those women will bring the gender perspective to the debates and law-making of those assemblies, so that each society and state can function to maximum effect, benefiting from the talents of all its members.
Lord Sheikh
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Stowell for securing this timely debate. We are here to pay homage to the achievements of women all over the world, as marked by this annual celebration, as well as to emphasise the progress that needs to be made and the challenges that lie ahead.
Women play a central part in keeping families and communities together. There is a strong link between achieving peace and the sustained development and advancement of gender equality. Earlier this week I spoke in a debate on the plans to mark the centenary of the First World War. This was a key influence in the development of women’s rights in the United Kingdom as women often replaced the millions of men who had been called up to fight on the front line. During this time, approximately 1.6 million women joined the workforce across government departments and in business administration, and played an invaluable role in our munitions factories.
The past 100 years are full of numerous examples of the contributions to world history made by remarkable women, such as the suffragettes, led by the Pankhurst sisters. In that time we have covered a great deal of ground, particularly in respect of voting rights, the opening up of various professions, opportunities in higher education and positions in businesses. I am heartened by the progress that we have made in increasing the number of female Members of Parliament in recent years, although the House is united in acknowledging that more needs to be done.
Since Nancy Astor took her seat in 1919, we have seen female representation in the House of Commons increase to 22%, which is a significant step forward, but we must move faster. We have a similar situation here in the House of Lords. It is, however, encouraging that the numbers are much healthier among our younger politicians, with women consisting of half of the 28 MPs under the age of 30. It is accepted none the less that women are still underrepresented in many aspects of political, corporate and cultural life, and in the media.
I believe that this Government appreciate and understand the challenges that we face. On a visit to Mumbai two weeks ago, the Prime Minister stated that there are not enough women in boardrooms, or indeed around the Cabinet table, and that companies and political parties need to be more proactive in attracting women. We have already seen a number of measures over the past two years that have helped women in various respects. One of the most notable has been the establishment of the Women’s Business Council. This looks to challenge the barriers that women face in playing a fuller part in business and the workplace. As a businessman, I am particularly excited by the potential benefits for economic growth in addition to the further female empowerment that could come from this. As an employer, I have always promoted my staff on merit, irrespective of gender.
Better appreciating and harnessing the skills women have to offer will only accelerate our economic recovery and it is estimated that such action could deliver benefits of between £15 billion and £21 billion per year. The Government should be congratulated on their introduction of flexible parental leave, allowing new mothers to share their maternity leave with their partners and giving them ultimate flexibility over how and when it is taken.
The United Nations theme for International Women’s Day 2013 is ending violence against women. Domestic violence against women often takes place in households where children are present, and in some cases these children are also victims of abuse. There should be an increase in support services for children who have witnessed abuse and for those who are victims of domestic violence. Research suggests that a number of adults who witnessed domestic violence as children are perpetrators of violence against their partners. It is also thought that the current economic climate could have the effect of increasing acts of domestic violence in households that are struggling to make ends meet. Does the Minister agree that more attention should be given to identifying those who are most vulnerable and dealing with this disturbing trend?
Human trafficking is also an issue that is of great concern to me. I have raised it on a number of occasions in your Lordships’ House. I believe that this immoral practice is the equivalent of modern-day slavery. I am proud that the United Kingdom has ratified the Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings. Women tend to be the main targets of the predatory gangs who engage in this immoral trade. What plans do the Government have to ensure that victims of human trafficking are given adequate support to rebuild their lives?
As a former visiting lecturer, I value the importance of education in giving people greater opportunities. Women have historically been deprived of chances to gain access to further education, and this has contributed to further inequality in the workplace. I am pleased to note that there has been a marked rise in the number of young women who are entering higher education in Britain. Last week, I was asked by the high commissioner of Bangladesh to present awards to British Bangladeshi school leavers who had attained very good results, and I was pleased to note that more girls than boys had been given the awards. However, these improvements are not reflected in the poorer parts of the world. It is imperative that we focus on regions and countries that have lacked progress and do all we can to educate and empower women in these places.
I care about the well-being of women, and I have spoken in your Lordships’ House on issues relating to female genital mutilation and forced marriages. Eighty per cent of cases of forced marriage involve girls. The Government have taken some positive steps on these issues, but it is important that we continue to address them through education and by encouraging the involvement of leaders and members of the communities in which these practices are taking place.
We are also very concerned about the use of rape as a weapon of war, which was debated in your Lordships’ House yesterday. I spoke then, and I shall reiterate a point that I made then. I am pleased that this Government have formed a UK team of 73 experts dedicated to combating and preventing sexual violence in armed conflict.
We should continue to lead by example, encouraging other countries to embrace the empowerment of women in the way that we have and inspiring our women, and indeed men, to continue extending and celebrating the reach and impact women can make in every facet of our lives.
Baroness Prosser
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, for initiating this debate in celebration of International Women’s Day. The title of the debate enables us to roam far and wide, and we know that the issues are many and various, but I have chosen to concentrate my remarks on ways in which the situation of women can be improved by the actions and interventions of men and boys, which the Minister mentioned in her opening remarks. It was the subject of the thematic debate at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in 2004 and 2009, and is reflected to some extent within the detail and requirements of a number of the millennium development goals.
Before we depress ourselves completely on the downside of the situation, let us consider how far, over the past 50 or so years, society’s view of women has moved on. Last year, my noble friend Lord Monks forwarded to me an e-mail entitled “Can You Believe This?”. The content of the e-mail consisted of a series of American 1950s newspaper and magazine advertisements commonly used at that time without a hint of irony or even a raised eyebrow. One is an ad for a Kenwood Chef food mixer. The man is saying, “The Chef does everything but cook, but that’s what wives are for”. His happy, smiling wife is looking very grateful. The second is for a vacuum cleaner, which is decorated with a lovely blue satin ribbon. A beautiful woman is lying on the floor beside the object, stroking it and reading the gift card. The wording on the ad says, “Christmas morning she’ll be happier with a Hoover”. I somehow doubt she was happy even then, but she certainly would not be now.
Of course things have moved on, and the advertising industry would not dream of suggesting such copy now, but media images of women still concentrate on a woman’s looks, size and age. Older women lose out on television and in theatre and film because there are so few strong and central roles available to them. Female presenters and newsreaders have to look perfect with not a coiffed hair out of place. This would not be so irritating if the same criteria were applied to men but, judging by some of the sights we see, this clearly is not the case. There is a big responsibility here for men at the top of TV and radio to recognise that this is not only silly and unfair but presents a skewed image of women and helps to promote the notion of woman as object.
Advertising and the media are not, of course, the only areas with room for improvement. Comments have been made this week by the previous Master of the Rolls, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger, regarding the small number of female senior judges. He unsurprisingly comes out against positive discrimination, but positive action programmes could be used to help improve the balance. Special events not just for women but to which senior women from the legal profession are invited could be used to help those women get to know the senior men in the profession, and to help the senior men realise that women lawyers are not, after all, such a strange species, and that just like the men they too might have hopes of moving on and up.
The Government’s encouragement of the work of my noble friend Lord Davies in increasing the number of women on company boards is to be lauded and welcomed. However, the businessmen in those companies should not need to wait for government initiatives and pressure. They could, for example, introduce special training programmes to help bring forward some of the women already employed in the company so that they feel ready to move through the pipeline. It makes economic sense and helps to instil commitment to the organisation. Companies should also ensure that they have good return-to-work programmes enabling mothers to continue with their careers, and add to that by welcoming and encouraging paternity leave and flexibility for fathers.
Encouraging women to hold down senior positions in the public and private sectors, and ensuring that they can do so, should not be seen as some sort of extra-curricular activity, but still we continue to have to press the point home. Why, for example, are there not more opportunities for good quality part-time jobs? This is not rocket science, as was shown by two young women in 2005 who started an organisation called Women Like Us. This came about from frustrated conversations at the school gates between them and other young mums looking for decent part-time work. Linking their demands with the needs of local employers proved a very successful approach and, late last year, with the sponsorship of Ernst & Young, Women Like Us launched Timewise Jobs, a website dedicated to providing access to quality part-time professional employment vacancies.
Come on, all you male employers: use a bit of imagination and initiative. Not only will you be on the road to providing a better gender-balanced workforce, you will save money by not losing good and committed female staff who find it impossible to balance full-time employment with being a parent.
There are a million and one ways in which men could be more helpful and could use their influence to increase women’s chances and status. Most important is to start at the beginning, and to look at the role of families and education. It would be wonderful if all families were sufficiently well organised and caring of each other to allow us to say that the home is where appropriate influences should begin and end. It is of course key that we encourage parents to set a good example by treating each other with respect. Seeing fathers help in the home—cooking, tending children and so on—also provides good role models.
However, not all families are able or willing to do this, and the role of the state then becomes important. This could be encapsulated in the Department for Education’s personal, social, health and economic education programme. Unfortunately, this is not part of the core curriculum so many young people will not have the chance to look at life, women and girls in a different and, I hope, more respectful way. This is a missed opportunity on the part of the Government to be able to say that they are playing their part in ensuring that the gender gap, which manifests itself in so many ways in our society, is recognised as being in real need of attention, and that they will play a leading and strategic role in addressing the part that can be played by men and boys.
Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve
My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Since so much of what the commission does bears on the topics of today’s debate, I feel multiply interested, in every sense of the word. I am very grateful to the Minister for instituting this debate and for its length, which enables us to say a little bit more. Like many other noble Lords, I admired the right reverend prelate’s maiden speech; it reminded us of how deep some of these issues go.
International Women’s Day is always a time to reflect on the rights of women, proclaimed, of course, in the 18th century—as the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, reminded us—but secured only very gradually across many decades in many different countries, in many different legislatures and by the action of many different people. We should remember in all this that the rights of women are not to be contrasted with the rights of men; they are rights that today, as earlier, are claimed and defended in the name of our common humanity. They are affirmed in some of the great documents of the modern world: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and the European Convention on Human Rights of 1950.
Earlier today at Question Time, there was reference to the question of whether the United Kingdom might withdraw from the European convention. I will just observe that the irritation that people express is often directed at the court, not at the convention. If we had a British Bill of human rights, I am pretty convinced that it would contain the same rights that are in the European convention, but of course we might lose touch with some of the necessary jurisprudence for interpreting those rights if we made such a shift.
However, we must all admit, and there have been many illustrations of this point, that the extension of rights to women is a very long-fought battle. It is a battle in which many countries have entered reservations, sometimes in order to afford additional protection to women—in matters such as night work, pregnancy or military service—but sometimes to differentiate the rights of men and women in areas such as family law, inheritance or succession. Hence the complexity of the process by which the United Nations has gradually inched the issue of women’s rights forward.
Despite continuing disputes about some of these reservations, though, the most remarkable thing is the progress that has been made in recognising the rights of women and girls, not merely—and proudly—in this country but across virtually every country in the world. There are, of course, still horrifying cases in which the rights of women are systematically ignored, where legislation does not restrict forced marriage or domestic violence, genital mutilation or—unmentioned so far but as serious as any of these—forced child-bearing. The deepened recognition and protection of women’s rights is one of the most profound social transformations of the past century, and it is to be greatly welcomed.
It is very easy to miss the profundity and scope of that transformation if one concentrates only on the human rights declarations and conventions. Human rights documents, in the nature of the case, set out certain aspirations. They seem lofty and abstract. The realisation of women’s rights is another matter, for rights are indeed no more than rhetoric if we do not secure the counterpart obligations. This fundamental point about rights was made with great elegance and accuracy by Clement Attlee, speaking in Scarborough in 1951. He asked,
“what kind of society do you want? We know the kind of society we want. We want a society of free men and women—free from poverty, free from fear, able to develop to the full their faculties in co-operation with their fellows, everyone giving and having the opportunity to give service to the community, everyone regarding his own private interest in the light of the interest of others, and of the community; a society bound together by rights and obligations, rights bringing obligations, obligations fulfilled bringing rights; a society free from gross inequalities and yet not regimented nor uniform”.
That statement has stood the test of 70 years very well. The phrase,
“rights bringing obligations, obligations fulfilled bringing rights”,
gives us a sense of what women’s rights are really about. I do not mean that we should focus once again on obligations or duties at the expense of rights, but we should acknowledge the indispensable interdependence of rights and obligations. Rights without duties are indeed mere rhetoric. Women’s rights are not going to be realised by proclamation—although proclamation has its point and there is a time for it—but rather by respect for and fulfilment of the corresponding obligations. These obligations are rather too often identified with securing legislation in each jurisdiction that enforces respect for the obligations necessary to secure and observe others’ rights. However, we now know that it requires more than legislation, legislation by itself is not enough to secure respect for rights. There is a tendency to imagine that in the case of human rights, all obligations lie with states. That is patently mistaken. Often, obligations lie with individuals and with the institutions of civil society, and the role of states and of legislation in particular is to back up and secure the performance of obligations, when that is the right way to secure respect for rights.
This point was clearly recognised in the 2011 report that has been referred to repeatedly today: Women on Boards. The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Abersoch, noted that quotas risk leading to tokenism, but that substantial change could be achieved by companies focusing on the robust, commercial reasons for seeking diversity on boards. Why do you need someone who will clone your own views and experience? That is the very person you do not need. Diversity nearly always has good effects.
I finish by asking the Minister two questions. First, how well is the public service progressing in taking steps to encourage the appointment of a reasonable proportion of women to senior posts, and to the boards to which it makes appointments? Secondly, our progress in securing and supporting women’s rights is monitored under CEDAW, the United Nations Convention on the Elimination on All Forms of Discrimination against Women. The seventh periodic review of UK performance under CEDAW is now under way, and the UK Government will be discussing its progress in Geneva in July. Will the Minister undertake to secure a debate on progress, or lack of it, on these issues in your Lordships’ House?
Baroness Seccombe
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on her enthusiastic introduction to this debate. We are here again, another year older, another year wiser—or, if not, we are perhaps better informed—to celebrate International Women’s Day. I always look forward to this day. The annual debate gives us a unique opportunity to reflect on the place that women have in our society and how it has changed from year to year—a State of the Union debate for women, you might say.
Next year will see the centenary of the start of the First World War; a war that means much to me as my father was one of the millions who suffered the horrific conditions in the trenches. I would like us to quickly reflect on how far women have come since then. That Great War was a real turning point for women. The first “total war” effort demanded the mobilisation of the whole country. The traditional workforce of millions of men was sent out to battle. This created a need for new workers, a need that could be filled only by women. Truly significant numbers started work, but the impact of war on the employment of women meant that suddenly they were able to break into jobs that had previously been the preserve of men, such as heavy industry, munitions and police work.
Since then, each year has seen what may appear to be slight, incremental changes for us as individuals. When they are viewed as a whole, though, we can see the enormous progress that has been made from the time of Emmeline Pankhurst, who as a Tory has always been an inspiration for Conservative women. We have had universal suffrage, women attending university and now among the most highly qualified professionals in the country, women running businesses and of course, memorably, a female Prime Minister.
The year 2012 was particularly great for women in this country. We saw innumerable successes for British women: Olympians like Jessica Ennis and Victoria Pendleton; Paralympians like Ellie Simmonds and Sarah Storey; and above all Her Majesty the Queen celebrating her glorious 60-year reign. Of course we still have a significant way to go, but that is quite some progress in anyone’s books.
There are a number of highly commendable schemes out there to help women, but I would like to update the House on one particular small scheme that I mentioned last year. The Electrical Contractors’ Association hugely impressed me with its pilot scheme, Wired for Success, aiming to encourage young women into the electrical contracting industry through apprenticeships. Last year the scheme’s founder, Diane Johnson, the first woman president of the ECA, won a prestigious First Women award sponsored by Lloyds Banking Group and the CBI. Twelve women started the two-year Wired for Success course, which, when completed, will give them a qualification to work competently and safely in a domestic environment. There are now 10 women nearing the end of the course. Many of them were long-term unemployed and now relish the new-found confidence and opportunities in their lives. Jahmena Wilson-Duhaney, one of the Wired for Success trainees, says:
“It’s been good to be involved in repair and maintenance work, and get a real feel for the job. The course is much more enjoyable than I expected it to be. I hope one day to be able to start up my own all-female firm so I can provide services for those who would prefer a woman to come into their home to do any work”.
Another woman to have benefitted, Josephine Blackwood Demirkilic, went on:
“It’s a real confidence boost because I can understand what is happening and see how the things I have learnt are put into practice”.
This is just one of a handful of brilliant projects that are inspiring women to further success. Through this and other imaginative schemes, we can encourage today’s women to take their future into their own hands. Not only will this help our economy but it will ensure that we continue to build on the tremendous progress that women have made so far. Schemes such as this can act as a beacon for others to adopt. Increased employment must come from the private sector and, in these challenging times, it is so good to have seen a steady rise in the employment figures. Apprenticeships, which must be increased, have for many years been the preserve of men. It is therefore particularly pleasing to hear of women taking advantage of a scheme that will set them upon a path of advancement to a fulfilling and rewarding career.
I am certainly not complacent and unaware. I realise that there are women who are still in a hurry for further progress in every field. However, I think it is important that once a year we reflect for a moment on how far we have come, marvel and then move forward with renewed zeal.
Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill
My Lords, I thank the Minister for securing this debate to mark International Women’s Day, which allows me to raise the plight of women prisoners in the UK and to mark another noteworthy event: the groundbreaking report published six years ago this month by my noble friend Lady Corston. Thanks in large part to her review, there have been improvements in some aspects of treatment, notably the ending of the routine strip-searching of prisoners, but there is still much to do. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, for raising this issue so eloquently earlier; I hope that noble Lords will forgive me if I restate some of her arguments.
There is a growing consensus that there are better ways to deal with young vulnerable women, often addicted, with mental health issues, unemployed, often homeless yet also parents, than by locking them up for short-term prison sentences for non-violent crimes. However, despite this consensus and the key recommendation by my noble friend Lady Corston in 2007 that custodial sentences for women must be reserved for serious and violent offenders who pose a threat to the public, in 2010 68% of women in prison were still there for non-violent crimes.
My noble friend Lady Corston’s report set out the stark facts. Most women prisoners were mothers, some were pregnant and they were often drug users, with habits of £200 a day for crack and heroin. Many were alcoholics and many were unwell, in poor physical and mental health. Common experiences included sexual, emotional and physical abuse, leading to chaotic lifestyles. There was often self-harming.
The Corston report argued strongly that there are fundamental differences between male and female offenders and those at risk of offending that indicate that a different and distinct approach is needed for women. Proportionately more women than men are remanded in custody. Women commit a different range of offences from men. They commit more acquisitive crime and have a lower involvement in serious violence, criminal damage and professional crime. Relationship problems feature strongly in women’s pathways into crime. Coercion by men can form a route into criminal activity for some women. Drug addiction plays a huge part in all offending and this is disproportionately the case with women. Mental health problems are far more prevalent among women in prison than in the male prison population. Self-harm in prison is a huge problem and more prevalent in the women’s estate.
Women represent just under 5% of the overall prison population, standing at 3,967 this month. At the end of June 2012, 58% of sentenced women entering prison were to serve sentences of six months or less. The life chances of these women, even before offending, are severely disadvantaged. According to statistics published by the campaign group Women in Prison, one in four women in prison has spent time in local authority care as a child. Nearly 40% of women in prison left school before the age of 16—almost one in 10 were aged 13 or younger—and 30% were permanently excluded from school. Over half the women in prison report having suffered domestic violence, and one in three has experienced sexual abuse. In the prison population, 19% of women were not in permanent accommodation before entering custody and 10% of women were sleeping rough.
These already vulnerable women suffer more, once in prison. Women account for 47% of all incidents of self harm, and 30% of women as compared to 10% of men have had a previous psychiatric admission before they come into prison. Of all the women who are sent to prison, 37% say they that have attempted suicide at some time in their life; 51% have severe and enduring mental illness; 47% have a major depressive disorder; 6% suffer from psychosis; and 3% suffer from schizophrenia. Eighty-three per cent stated that they had a longstanding illness, compared with 32% of the general female population, and 73% were on medication on arrival at prison. The Ministry of Justice has admitted that women may be less able—for example, because of mental health issues—to conform to prison rules and therefore are often subject to higher rates of disciplinary proceedings than men.
Not only do women suffer grievously by being imprisoned but so do their families. It is estimated that more than 17,000 children are separated from their mothers each year by imprisonment. Only half of the women who had lived or were in contact with their children prior to imprisonment had received a visit since going to prison. Maintaining contact with children is made more difficult by the distance at which many prisoners are held from their home area. This is a particularly acute problem for women given the number of women’s prisons; in 2009, 753 women were held more than 100 miles from home.
These statistics prove the need to fully implement the Corston recommendation that community solutions for non-violent women offenders should be the norm, and that community sentences must be designed to take account of women’s particular vulnerabilities and domestic and childcare commitments. However, 80% of women sentenced to custody in the year to June 2011 had committed a non-violent offence, and only 3.2% of women in prison are assessed as high or very high risk of harm to others.
My noble friend Lady Corston rightly concluded against imprisoning women offenders who posed no risk to the public. She called for the closure of women’s prisons over a 10-year period and their replacement by some small custodial units for serious and dangerous offenders. However, currently there are still 13 women’s prisons in England.
The need for more women’s community centres to act as a real alternative to prison is critical to an effective and humane criminal justice system. Increasingly, though, despite the excellent work being done and the success rate in reducing reoffending, many of these centres are now under threat because of cuts to their funding.
This strategy of providing an alternative to custody also makes economic sense. As my noble friend said in her report:
“Problems that lead to offending—drug addiction, unemployment, unsuitable accommodation, debt—are all far more likely to be resolved through casework, support and treatment than by being incarcerated in prison. The vast majority of women offenders are not dangerous. Because most women do not commit crime there is no deterrence value and the cost to society is enormous, not simply the cost of keeping women in prison … but also the indirect cost of family disruption, damage to children and substitute care, lost employment and subsequent mental health problems. The continued use of prison for women appears to offer no advantages at huge financial and social cost”.
I hope that the long-awaited review of custodial arrangements for women promised for this summer will offer a radical alternative to sending women who commit non-violent crimes to prison, and will finally implement my noble friend’s ground-breaking report.
Baroness Afshar
My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, for putting this debate on the agenda. On this occasion I will speak on the experiences of Iranian women, whose access to education has been systematically curtailed over the past decade, and ask whether it would be possible for conditions allowing bright, qualified, English-speaking Iranian students who apply for universities and have the resources to be more easily admitted via the visa requirements. However, before doing so, I point out that the reason why the access of Iranian women to education has been severely curtailed by the Iranian Government over the past decade is the fear that, through education, they will gain familiarity with and knowledge of their Islamic rights.
Some 14 centuries ago Islam gave women rights that are the subject of discussion in this debate today. I will begin with the right of independent means. Muslim women never lose their property on marriage. As I said to my husband when I married him, what I have is mine—and what he has is mine too. The reason for that is, to follow the comment made by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, the duty of reciprocity. That is to say, Muslim men first have the duty to pay for women to agree to sign a marital contract. Marriage is a matter of contract between consenting partners, and men must pay women to participate and sign in the first place. They can impose any condition they like, and these are contractually binding agreements.
Secondly, marriage and motherhood are not indivisible. The noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, raised questions about paying for childcare and motherhood. The reality is that Islam, 14 centuries ago, gave women the right to choose. If they chose to be mothers, they were entitled to payment, not by the state but by men—by their husbands. If they chose to do housework they were entitled to ask for payment—again, by their husbands. Therefore, essentially, rights that as a feminist in the West I have been fighting for ever since I have been in England were bestowed on Muslim women 14 centuries ago.
However, in order to exercise these rights women need to be familiar with the Koranic teachings and with what Islam offers them. This is the Iranian Government’s fear. In fact, they have two fears: the first is of women knowing their Islamic rights, and the second is the fear of the West—of West-toxification, of Iranian women being intoxicated by the West. They have nowhere to turn.
After the Iranian revolution, the post-revolutionary Iranian Government closed all universities in order to cleanse them of any kind of western influence. When they reopened the universities only 10% of university students were women, because women were deemed unsuitable to attend university. However, using their Koranic rights and the teachings of Islam, women fought, and within a decade they made up 18% of university places, eventually reaching 50% of the student population.
Far from seeing this as an achievement, the Iranian Government declared that this kind of access to education caused,
“social disparity and economic and cultural imbalances between men and women”.
This fear was exacerbated when women made further progress until they comprised 65% of students at universities, simply because they were willing to work harder; they passed entrance exams, which are set for all, and they did better than men. We all know that women often do better than men if they are given the chance.
By 2009, 68% of all graduates in the sciences at Iranian universities were women. This caused real fear on the part of the Iranian Government. Ayatollah Khamenei, the spiritual leader, ordered a second cleansing of university material—and Islamification all over again. As part of this, they felt that there had to be severe segregation between men and women; women would study particular subjects while men would study other, more suitable subjects. The result of that was that by the year 1213, 77 fields of study were considered to be male only, and therefore unsuitable for women. The one women-only subject was nursing; it was recognised that we might be good carers, but nothing else mattered.
There was also an idea that because the female dormitories were limited, fewer women would attend universities from towns other than Tehran. Furthermore, it was felt that educated women who accessed universities and read the limited range of subjects that they were allowed to study caused a very serious problem. First, they tended to marry later. Secondly, they tended to be much choosier about who they married and they preferred to marry men who were equally well or better educated than themselves, so the poor old uneducated men were left on the shelf. That was not considered acceptable. Of particular importance was the fact that educated women had fewer children. Following that, the Iranian Government have imposed draconian measures that have resulted in a number of prestigious universities, such as the Oil Industry University and Isfahan University, no longer admitting women. Those universities that do admit women limit them to a very restricted range of subjects. Human rights, English literature, women’s studies and a whole raft of subjects are considered unsuitable for women. I suppose they think that women might get interested in other subjects through reading English literature. At this crucial point it is very important to open doors for those Iranian women who are able to go to university to enable them to do so in countries such as the UK and to treat them as freedom fighters, not potential terrorists.
Lord Mitchell
My Lords, I thank the Minister for securing this debate. I also extend my congratulations to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry on his excellent maiden speech, which I watched on the screen upstairs. I must confess that I am still reeling from Question Time and the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Flight. I think that he may well be in the running for the title of dinosaur of the year.
My credentials are as follows. In the mid-1980s I was chairman of a public company in the tech sector. We were a fully listed company and we had a woman on our board, who was there because she was outstanding. She was in her late 30s and had just had her first baby. She brought her baby to a board meeting and breastfed it during the meeting. We reckon that we were the first company where that had occurred.
Today I wish to talk about a very special organisation called Women for Women International, on the main board of which my wife sits. It was set up in 1993 by a woman called Zainab Salbi, who was an Iraqi living in Baghdad and whose father was Saddam Hussein’s pilot. I think that it got too hot for everyone at that time and her parents moved to the United States. During the conflict in Bosnia she was smuggled into that country, went to Sarajevo and saw what was happening there. She became very interested in the whole concept of women in post-conflict zones, as Bosnia eventually became.
Today Women for Women International is located in both Washington and London and has helped 350,000 women, which I shall discuss in a moment. It operates in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, South Sudan and Nigeria—all pretty tough countries. The ethos of this organisation is that stronger women build stronger nations and that, through access to know-how and resources, socially excluded women can change their countries and build peaceful and stable communities. The organisation creates awareness and behavioural change and organises year-long curriculums in which women are taught economic, social and civic rights, health awareness, decision-making, negotiating civic participation, business and vocational skills, how to access income-generating activities and, most importantly, economic self-sufficiency. A KPMG study of this body’s activities in the DRC and Rwanda states that Women for Women International’s programme is having a significant economic ripple effect, as other women in the community are learning from Women for Women graduates who are now viewed as role models in the community.
I want to say a little about my experiences. Three years ago I went to Bosnia for the first time and saw horrific things. I went to Srebrenica, of course. I am Jewish by background, and when you go to those memorials and see the names of the people who died, comprising family name after family name, it is very reminiscent of some of the memorials in eastern Europe to the dead of World War 2. Bosnia was the country that gave us such charming expressions as “ethnic cleansing” and “rape as a weapon of war”.
The Serbs took part in a particularly gruesome activity. In the Muslim community, a dead body has to be buried whole. When Muslim men were killed, the Serbs mixed up their bones so that it would be impossible to find whole bodies. However, since then and with the advent of DNA, the slow process of matching these bones has begun so that bodies can be buried whole. I saw mothers and wives eventually finding some form of closure following the deaths of their loved ones. I know that this is not a political debate but I find it impossible to accept that Serbia could ever become a member of the EU, given that there is so much for which it has not atoned in that awful situation. However, I shall leave that alone. We have a house in Italy that is 200 miles away from Bosnia as the crow flies. However, these activities have occurred in our lifetime and women have suffered as a result.
I have also visited Kosovo and Rwanda. The latter has experienced terrible genocide. Nevertheless, it is one of the happiest countries that I have ever been to. It is an amazing place. In 1945 the world said “never again”, but the fact is that it never stops. However, there is some good news. Women for Women International staff are teaching women in Bosnia to carry out important jobs. I have visited those activities. I went to a chicken farm, a mushroom farm and a tomato farm and saw women who produced embroidery and supplied it to a leading brand in the United States. In Kosovo we met a female beekeeper who had started with two hives, obtained with a microloan. She grew the business to 40 hives and was generating €5,000 a year for her family and teaching more women how to keep bees and make honey.
In Rwanda, which, as I say, is one of the happiest places I have even been to, a group of white women and I weeded and harvested in the fields under the noonday sun with machetes in our hands, although it was horrible to hold a machete in that country. Thank God, after 20 minutes they called it a day. We spoke to the women in that place and one of them asked me the question that throughout my life I have found the hardest to answer—namely, how many litres of milk does my cow provide? That was a tough question to answer.
I end with a few statistics that I think are terribly impressive. The average daily income of women trebles when women attend courses run by Women for Women International. The same is true of savings: 27% of the women are now saving. Knowledge of good nutrition has gone up from 20% to 85%. Knowledge of civil rights has gone up from 16% to 90%, and participating in social work has gone up similarly from 36% to 80%. The two most important statistics reveal that participating in community activities has gone up to 70% and voting up to 75%. I know that my time is up. I would just like to say that this is an amazing organisation, and I ask noble Lords to look it up on the website.
Baroness Nye
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, for her introduction to this debate. I also congratulate her friend, Julie, who I think will give the Co-op a run for its money.
As has been said, International Women’s Day gives us an opportunity to reflect on progress made and to call for change. To reflect on progress made, it is perhaps best to begin here in Parliament and in government. There are now 20 countries in which a woman is head of state or government or both, which is a small but upward trend, but fewer than one in five parliamentarians in the world are women. As someone has already said, at the current rate of progress a child born today will draw her pension before she has any chance of being equally represented in the parliament of her country.
In an IPU survey of women in parliaments in 190 countries, the UK has fallen from last year to joint 57th with Pakistan, even though the largest ever number of women candidates were elected in 2010, albeit only a 4% increase since 2000. There are currently only 22 women out of 122 government Ministers, four of whom are full Cabinet members. A third of those are actually in this House, and believe it or not I would like to see more of you here, albeit while we are still unelected.
The Minister mentioned the Prime Minister’s pledge to have a third of ministerial positions occupied by women by 2015, but sadly it looks as though that is not going to be met. It seems a distant time ago when there were eight Labour women around the Cabinet table. Sadly, this has not been the year when there might have been the possibility of change on the Bishops’ Benches. However, after the wonderful maiden speech by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry, I hope we will not be waiting too long.
With selections happening now for parliamentary constituencies, we must all work even harder to improve the momentum for political parties to improve the numbers of women represented in Parliament. Women in parliaments everywhere can make a difference. Two weeks ago, on Valentine’s Day, parliamentarians from all parties joined the One Billion Rising campaign, which had organised a coalition of women around the world to sing and dance to stop violence against women. The theme of International Women’s Day this year is “A promise is a promise: time for action to end violence against women”.
Worldwide, 50% of sexual assaults are committed against girls under the age of 16. Over 600 million women live in countries where domestic violence is not yet considered a crime. Up to 70% of women in the world report having experienced physical and/or sexual violence at some point in their lifetime, and over 60 million girls are child brides before they are 18. The One Billion Rising campaign in the UK ran workshops to find out what would make the biggest difference in addressing domestic violence. The overwhelming majority thought that a change in attitude had to start with education to prevent it happening in the first place and that sex and relationship education should be statutory in all schools. I would include free schools and academies in that as well. They are not alone. Most of the agencies that work in this field, including the PSHE Association, have also been campaigning for this.
I know that the Government have conducted a review of PSHE, and I hope the Minister will assure us that they have taken note of these informed voices and will indicate when the outcome of that review will be published. We need to move away from sex education that focuses exclusively on the reproductive aspects of adolescent sexuality and recognise that sexually active and sexually abstinent young people need information in order to be able to make informed choices. Currently, parents can withdraw their children from sex education up to the age of 19, even though the legal age of consent is 16. Horses and stable doors come to mind.
Schools have a vital role to play in helping young people develop healthy attitudes and behaviour, especially when figures show just how routine sexual bullying and harassment are in schools. One in three 16 to 18 year-old girls say they have been groped or have experienced unwanted touching. One in three teenage girls have experienced sexual violence from their boyfriends. We need specialist staff who are committed, experienced, mature and comfortable with this obviously sensitive issue. A recent survey by Brook showed that more than a quarter of secondary school pupils received no sex and relationship education and over a quarter of those who did reported that the teacher was unable to teach it well, so a greater emphasis on PSHE education in initial teacher training and in qualification programmes for head teachers is also needed.
Access to technology has changed, as the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, has said. Mobile porn has replaced internet porn. Young people need help to distinguish between healthy relationships and unhealthy ones, especially as many have no example to follow at home. Research shows that boys have a higher tolerance of sexual violence than girls and need to be challenged at an early age about what is acceptable behaviour. However, new technologies and new ways of communication can play a helpful role. Thanks to a Twitter storm at the weekend, Amazon was forced to withdraw from its website T-shirts with slogans promoting rape and violence. “Keep calm and knife her” was one of the nicer ones that I can repeat. The company involved claimed that the slogans had been automatically generated using a scripted computer process, but no T-shirts denigrating men were on sale. So now we know that computers are also misogynist.
We need to give our children the knowledge and belief that they can make informed choices and the confidence to say no. If financial education can be made statutory in our schools, which I support, then surely a healthy relationship is just as important as a healthy bank balance.
On International Women’s Day, let us celebrate acts of courage and determination by women everywhere who have played a role in the history of their countries and their communities.
Lord Black of Brentwood
My Lords, I have always believed that it is one of the priceless privileges of our House that we can give a voice to the voiceless. In this excellent debate on International Women’s Day—I join others in thanking my noble friend for securing it—I want to lend my voice to a lady named Florence Ky’eeyse, who lives in a small plot of land on the outskirts of a village called Butale in Uganda. Her story comes to me from a very dear friend who knows her well. Florence is a 35 year-old, educated and dignified woman. She is a widow whose husband died seven years ago and she is bringing up two children—one boy and one girl—on her own.
Life for Florence is increasingly tough. Her late husband’s family keep trying to evict her from the land she inherited when her husband died. A woman’s property rights are often undermined when the husband dies. Bringing up her children is a struggle. She wants them to have a better life than she had, but she cannot afford the tuition fees. Only one child is entitled to free schooling at the mission school. Money is very tight. Her two- acre plot of land would once have supported the family, but in recent years Uganda, which had until recently a very balanced climate, has been suffering from the effects of extreme weather, and the banana trees, which provide the staple food, have been struck with banana wilt, a disease that kills them.
Florence works very hard growing matoke to scrape a living and keeps some chickens. In a good month her income is about 100,000 Ugandan shillings, which is about £25. From this she must keep her children fed, clothed and educated. There is no money for luxuries such as electricity, and water must be fetched from a well. Charcoal, which is increasingly expensive, is the only way to cook, and kerosene is used to light the house. Very occasionally, Florence and her family have some meat, but that is very rare because the chickens are too valuable to consume. While Florence earns 100,000 shillings a month, her outlay just to subsist is 103,000 shillings: a gap that is small but which is getting bigger. That is where the most terrible problem—the one I want to talk about today—bites. Florence has AIDS; she was infected by her late husband. Of her two children, one—her young son—is also HIV positive.
Too many, I fear, believe that the problem with HIV in Africa is getting better because of the increasing availability of antiretrovirals, and indeed there has been some welcome progress. However, Florence’s story tells us something different. There is no medical care in her village. There used to be a small clinic but it closed two years ago. The only place she can get medicine is in Masaka, 12 miles away. That would cost her 1,500 shillings in transport on a boda-boda, a local bicycle taxi: money that she does not often have. The alternative is to walk the 24 miles there and back, which means that she is unable to work on the land to earn money to keep the family, a vicious cycle of poverty and illness.
In short, Florence and her family have no access to life-saving drugs. She takes them irregularly when she can get hold of them, but that irregularity is doing her great harm. She goes to the hospital only when she is desperately ill, which happens all too frequently, because her and her son’s shattered immune systems leave them easy prey to infection. Malaria, too, is a real problem, and frequent bouts of that terrible illness leave them increasingly weakened. Antibiotics are expensive and frequently compromised or out of date.
All that means, I am afraid, is that Florence will die before too long—as I understand it, possibly in the next few months—and her son soon after. Her 14 year- old daughter, instead of completing her education, will have to nurse them, and watch what remains of her kith and kin leave her. It is another hard-working, educated, decent family entangled in an inescapable web of poverty and disease, and destroyed by AIDS.
Florence’s terrible story, replicated in thousands of cases all over Africa, contains one central point that we should remember on International Women’s Day; although there have been major advances in treating HIV and AIDS, many organisations ignore the fact that in the rural areas of Africa it remains next to impossible for those suffering to access the drugs that could save their lives. Even though the drugs are free, the distance and costs involved are beyond their reach. The problems are deeper than that, for women in rural Africa have always worked the land; often they are the primary workers. However, they cannot work the land if they are sick or making long journeys to find care. It is a cycle of despair that consumes them.
A few years back, a UN report on HIV and AIDS among women concluded that,
“one of the apparent cruelties of the HIV/AIDS epidemic is that women are at a biological disadvantage relative to men in terms of contracting the disease”.
Indeed, in sub-Saharan Africa, young women are 205 times more likely to be infected than young men. Little wonder that women now comprise 50% of people living with HIV worldwide. The burdens of stigma, discrimination and marginalisation combine with the harsh economic realities of life that I have just described to create conditions that mean that women such as Florence will continue to die in their tens of thousands. We cannot sit back and watch. It is surely time for a holistic policy approach to the treatment of HIV and AIDS among women in the developing world, one that tackles the problems that prevent them accessing life-saving drugs that those in the developed world take for granted. It is therefore not just about medicine but about infrastructure, transport and money.
I ask my noble friend to ensure that this issue stays close to the top of the Government’s agenda for tackling disease and poverty in the developing world. If the message from this House today and the actions of government within the international community and the NGOs are loud and clear, we could perhaps begin to end this spiral of disaster. To my deep regret, and to the shame of so many, that will be too late for Florence and her son. All I can do for them is send them a copy of the report of this House’s proceedings today and say, “Your voice has been heard”.
Baroness Crawley
My Lords, I want to use my few moments to share with you some initial thoughts on the theme of respecting women in 2013. I add my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston, for initiating the debate and especially for her moving story of the redoubtable Julie of Beeston. The people of Beeston are dying to support her. I also warmly welcome the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry to our House, particularly his support for women bishops. He has his work cut out.
A glance around our world on International Women’s Day will show us that one in three women will be raped or beaten in her lifetime. According to UN Women, up to 70% of women in some countries face physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime. In addition, some 140 million girls have suffered female genital mutilation, and millions will be subjected to forced marriage and trafficking, as referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh. We live in a world that most definitely does not respect women.
However, there is hope. Michelle Bachelet, the executive director of UN Women, pointed out this week that over the past few months, men, women and young people have taken to the world’s streets with signs aloft bearing the legend, “Where is the justice for women?”. They have declared solidarity with the Pakistani teenager, Malala Yousafzai, who is recovering in Birmingham, having been shot at point-blank range by the Taliban for defending the right of women to be educated. The demonstrators pledge justice for all raped women, including in the terrible cases in India and South Africa, as well for as the countless abused women who never make the headlines. The One Billion Rising campaign is truly a global fightback, as my noble friend Lady Nye has said, demanding renewed respect for women, with marches in Afghanistan, human chains in Bangladesh, dancing and singing events in Egypt, events in 126 cities in Germany this year, actions in the workplace through protest, and dance and the arts across the world, from Somalia to Australia.
War and sexual violence were ably debated yesterday in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Wakefield, and we must remember that poverty is a close relative of violence against women. It is crucial for the Government to remain true to the achievement of the millennium development goals in this respect, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said. Will the Minister report to us on progress towards the anti-poverty targets in those goals?
While we support campaigns and call for international targets to be achieved and aid budgets to be protected, we can of course apply even more pressure to implementing UK law where it exists to protect girls and women. I am thinking of the law already on the statute book, the intention of which is to protect little girls in this country at our state schools from the lifetime horror of female genital mutilation. The campaigning work on FGM of my noble friend Lady Rendell is rightly to be acknowledged, as is the work of the present and previous Governments on this issue. I welcome the Government’s announcement this week of £35 million towards the eradication of FGM. It is a national disgrace that some 24,000 girls living in Britain—some put the figure far higher—are under threat of being taken out of the UK to be tortured in this barbaric procedure. Why, we must ask, after 30 years of law on this issue, have there been no prosecutions? I would like to hear from the Minister what the Government are doing to encourage prosecutions. I am not claiming that the issue of FGM is anything but complex and multifaceted, but surely bringing prosecutions must at least be part of the mix of solutions to this shameful practice.
Also close to home, our attention in the political arena has been drawn to how we respect pregnant women in this country. The Autumn Statement heralded a cut of £180 a year from pregnant mothers who take maternity leave and care for their babies. It is just over 20 years—with a little help from a European directive that I was closely involved in—since UK mothers finally began to see an upward trend in their maternity rights. We call on the Government to ensure that, 20 years on, new mothers will not see those rights and that maternity pay diminish.
Those of us who received briefings this week from the national charities Maternity Action and the Refugee Council on their recent report When Maternity Doesn’t Matter were disturbed to learn of the impact of the dispersal policies of the UK Border Agency on pregnant refugee and asylum-seeking women. What response are the Government making to this very important report, especially to its recommendation that no pregnant woman should be dispersed in this country after 34 weeks’ gestation, or sooner than six weeks postnatally?
On the subject of respecting women, I recommend last month’s moving speech by Enda Kenny, the Taoiseach of Ireland, on how the Irish Government would have to own up to the wrong that was done to so many hundreds of Irish girls and women put away in the infamous Magdalene laundries in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. It is a speech well worth reading.
In conclusion, I quote from the recently published history of stoicism, Philosophic Pride by Christopher Brooke. I declare an interest: he is my son-in-law— no mother-in-law jokes, please. He refers to Mary Wollstonecraft, the 18th century feminist, already mentioned by my noble friend Lady Massey of Darwen and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill of Bengarve. I did not realise this, but Mary Wollstonecraft was favourably oriented to stoicism and she said:
“Would men but generously snap our chains, and be content with rational fellowship instead of slavish obedience, they would find us more observant daughters, more affectionate sisters, more faithful wives, more reasonable mothers—in a word, better citizens. We should then love them with true affection, because we should learn to respect ourselves”.
Some 221 years on, I say amen to that.
Baroness Uddin
My Lords, I am delighted to take part in this debate and thank the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston, for her gracious contribution. The Minister referred to yesterday’s debate in this House about sexual violence. I was unfortunately unable to take part because, for a rare moment, the role of motherhood triumphed and I attended a parents’ evening. Had I been present, I would have commended our Government’s progress in eradicating the use of rape as a weapon of war.
I begin by saluting my noble sister Baronesses across the House, if I may be allowed to call them sisters. I salute them for their tenacity, resilience and contribution to enhancing our public life. It is not often that we give a roll call to our own champions and heroines. Therefore, I want to remember that our Parliament has been enriched by the contributions of Diane Abbott and Dawn Butler; the noble Baronesses, Lady King of Bow, Lady Howells of St Davids, Lady Amos, Lady Young of Hornsey, Lady Falkner of Margravine, Lady Flather and Lady Prashar; the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland; and the noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, who just reminded us about the strength of our faith and all those who use our faith to incite prejudice and discrimination.
All these women continue to inspire our generation and young women and men. As the first Muslim appointed to this House, I have found it staggering that it took more than a decade to get our act in order. A layer of discrimination has been broken by honourable Members in another place with the election of Rushanara Ali, Yasmin Qureshi, Shabana Mahmood, Seema Malhotra, Valerie Vaz, Priti Patel, Helen Grant and Chi Onwura. These women have given strength to Parliament. Theirs are the hitherto missing voices of Asian and black women in Parliament. Their collective entrance to the mother of Parliaments demonstrates that British-born women of minority heritage are just as capable and confident as any others. Access to networking opportunities prevents many more participating in the political process and holding office. As well as those in the other place, I also acknowledge the work of the noble Baronesses, Lady Warsi and Lady Verma, who contribute as Ministers to this Government.
There are significant and positive changes from women entering the political arena. Recently, through the work of the IPU, the CPA and the John Smith Memorial Trust, I had the honour of meeting women parliamentarians from Ghana, Uganda, Oman and, more recently, two of the 30 women appointed to the Saudi Shura Council. Each year as this day approaches, I, like others, am full of complex emotions. While women of course have the vote and are present in all our professions and businesses, and are afforded legal protection from harm and discrimination, the reality of many women’s lives continue to be blighted and stain our claim to an equal and just society.
The number of women active in our economy has grown. Those who have been educated are doing much better. Childcare provision is available, albeit expensive. None the less, this is not so for all our communities. Women from minority communities continue to stay behind in the job market—if they are present at all—and continue to face impossible odds to succeed in senior management positions and on boards. I note what the noble Lord, Lord Davies, said about work to improve representation on boards. I hope he will also remember that women on boards should reflect the country that we live in. These sorts of discriminatory practices prevail whether in the public or private sectors.
Although we say we believe that our society respects and values women, every day women are afflicted, abused, raped, forced into marriage and suffer genital mutilation, which the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, spoke about eloquently. They are also raped in war to accomplish military objectives as a weapon of war. Many women with these experiences are British or have come to Britain seeking refuge. Shockingly, women continue not to be believed when they report blatant acts of abuse, violation and brutality. I need not remind noble Lords that I am not referring to a phenomenon elsewhere, but to the position of women who reside in our country and are British citizens.
The noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, also referred to women’s looks, which can lead to discrimination in office, opportunities and public life. This is the experience of many Muslim women who have spoken about discrimination against them as a result of wearing the hijab.
I welcome the right reverend Prelate to his place and add my name to his call for remembering those women who perished in the world wars. This month the Bangladeshi community here and in Bangladesh has celebrated its language movement, which led to the war with Pakistan, in which an estimated 300,000 women were raped and many subsequently died. I want to take this opportunity to remember and honour them, and pray that they will also receive justice in due course.
Two nights ago I attended an amazing and unique event. Of course, many of us attend many different events. This one celebrated motherhood. Surprisingly, all the mothers were nominated by daughters. Not one single son had nominated his mother. I do not know whether to be surprised at that, as a mother of four sons. I was not nominated; I was there to give an award. But it reminded me of the tenacity of my own mother. I forgot to say that. In the spirit of the joy of everyone present and how much they shared about the values of motherhood, I thought that I had best leave my mother alone. However, I want to take this opportunity today to say that I very much value my mother, who is a strong and courageous woman who came to Britain after the war in Bangladesh, and is a source of strength, love and inspiration to my brothers and sister, her grandchildren and my grandchildren.
Let us keep the promise to one another and to all women across the world that we will continue to root out inequality and injustice.
Baroness Pitkeathley
My Lords, it is always a huge pleasure to take part in this debate. I, too, am grateful to the Minister. As ever, I am in awe of the amount of experience, passion and expertise which Members of your Lordships’ House bring to the subject. This far down the batting order—we have had quite a few sporting metaphors today—it is difficult to think of anything new to say, but I just want to say a bit about public service.
All my working life has been in public service. I have never worked in the private sector. I have worked for local authorities, for the NHS or in the voluntary sector. Because I know what a hugely fulfilling experience this has been, I am concerned, even appalled, by recent reports about the fact that the number of women in British public life is plummeting; that there are fewer women now in senior positions in the judiciary, the arts, education, finance, the Civil Service and government than 10 years ago. Nearly 40 years after the Sex Discrimination Act and despite a huge influx of women into professions such as law and medicine at the lower end, as we have heard today, the glass ceiling for senior positions remains very firmly uncracked.
I count myself extremely fortunate to be able to sit in a legislature without standing for election, because of the peculiar institution that is the House of Lords. I know that it is ironic that I am saying that we should have more representation of women when I sit in a House that has only 21% women and, although we have many bishops, no women bishops, as the marvellous maiden speech of the right reverend Prelate has reminded us. It is of concern to me, and should be to all women, that we are 51% of the population, but only 22% of the House of Commons and a bit over 21% here.
A high point came in 2008 when Gordon Brown appointed Jacqui Smith as the first female Home Secretary. Before the Labour Government in 1997, only 40 female MPs had ever held ministerial office. By the time that Government ended, that had risen to 80; indeed, at that time women held a third of all ministerial posts. Currently, I am sad to say, many departments have no women Ministers at all, in spite of the ambition of the Prime Minister, which we have heard about several times.
Of course, many of the institutions that have promoted women have been abolished: the Equalities Office, the Women’s National Commission, to name two; and of course the Equalities and Human Rights Commission has been amalgamated with other institutions.
It bothers me greatly, as I know it does other noble Lords, that there is a perception that the battle for equality was won a while ago—by my generation, perhaps—but it is simply not true. Some people might say that it does not matter but I contend that having an 80/20 split rather than a 50/50 split has a damaging effect on our political life and on our social and cultural life as well.
Why do we find ourselves going backwards? One reason might be lack of leadership from the top. We still have a female Home Secretary, and other women do very well in some branches of industry, but the fact that there are so few sends a message to other women. Is the treatment by the media of women in public life harsher than it is for men? I contend that it is and that may also put women off.
The hours here and in the other place are not family-friendly, as we know. They are better than they were, especially in the House of Commons. The House of Lords is notorious for starting a debate on family-friendly hours at 10.30 pm. In fact, I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, was due to make her maiden speech in that debate.
Baroness Pitkeathley
We do a little better than that now, but perhaps not all that much better. Perhaps the image that politics is an inherently sexist arena—recent events may have reinforced that image—is also not welcoming to women.
We have also heard that it is hard to give up power. Power largely resides in the hands of men, who understandably want to retain it. Inadequate childcare is certainly a factor. A recent survey shows that two out of three local authorities are failing to fulfil their statutory obligation to provide childcare, despite the progress that the Minister mentioned. If the lack of support in the childcare area is a factor, how much more this is true of women who have caring responsibilities for older or disabled relatives.
It is in all our interests to enable those women, many of them over 50, to remain in the workforce. We need them to provide care but also to be able to continue to combine caring with paid employment. Their contribution to the economy is vital in both roles but we must also ensure that the caring role does not of itself lead them to live in poverty or build up poverty for the future because of a lack of pension contributions or savings. I am pleased to say that, yesterday, Carers UK launched an inquiry into caring and family finances, examining the costs of caring and the impact that caring has on the ability to work, with the aim of influencing policy in this area.
So far as public service goes, we must ask: what can we do about it? We can get better leadership from the top. We can stop rubbishing the idea of public service. Too often we hear that civil servants are interested only in bureaucracy. We must talk up public service.
We must have parity on interview panels, because we tend to appoint or choose people in our own image. Having appointed dozens, probably hundreds, of people in my time, I know that men tend to oversell themselves while women go the other way and undersell themselves. In that regard, increasing the self-confidence of women is all-important. Those of us who have been reasonably successful in public life owe a duty to our daughters and granddaughters to build that confidence so that the whole of society can benefit.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
My Lords, your Lordships’ House stages an International Women’s Day debate each year but it is not normally opened by a Minister. The noble Baroness deserves much credit for doing so on this occasion.
Tomorrow marks the 105th International Women’s Day. Over the period since 1977, when the United Nations adopted the day, the rights of women have certainly progressed. Of course, much more is required and, as the UN says, International Women’s Day celebrates,
“the achievements of women while remaining vigilant and tenacious for further sustainable change”.
At least there is now global momentum for championing and extending women’s equality.
Emphasis needs to be placed on the importance of employing women to participate in the growth of economies around the globe, especially in under-developed nations, because although many women worldwide contribute to their own country’s productivity, they continue to face many barriers that prevent them realising their full economic potential. This is not something that only holds back women, it holds back general economic performance and growth. According to a recent International Labour Organisation report, the percentage of women in employment globally was roughly 50%. In north Africa, women accounted for 24% of employment, and in the Middle East generally, it was just 15%. That represents vast untapped potential for economic growth.
Each year around the world, International Women’s Day is celebrated through thousands of events, not only on 8 March but throughout this month, to mark the economic, political and social achievements of women. Organisations, governments, charities, educational institutions, women’s groups, corporations and the media celebrate the day. Tomorrow, the UN will itself mark International Women’s Day with an event at its headquarters in New York opened by the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The UN women’s executive director, Michelle Bachelet, will deliver the message that discrimination and violence against women and girls have no place in the 21st century. “Enough is enough”, she will say, in a message of both outrage and hope that discrimination and violence must end.
Such is the extent to which International Women’s Day is marked in the UK that a total of 387 events in all parts of the country are listed on the UN’s website. That is more than 25% of all events worldwide scheduled for tomorrow. I glanced at the list, and it really is an imaginative mix of events of all types, many involving children. An event that particularly caught my eye was called, Suffragettes—A Liverpool Story, highlighting the struggle of women for the right to vote as it evolved within that city. Of course that is particularly apposite as we are now just three months away from the centenary of the death of Emily Wilding Davison, the incredibly brave woman who took the suffragette movement’s slogan “deeds not words” to its ultimate and tragic conclusion. She, of course, lost her life stepping onto the course at the Epsom Derby to protest for votes for women in a heroic but fatal action that helped electrify the movement and the cause.
Further afield, I noticed earlier this week, an all-female climbing team supported by the United Nations reached the summit of Africa’s tallest mountain, Mount Kilimanjaro, in celebration of International Women's Day. The team, made up of women from Nepal and three African countries, participated in the expedition as a way of raising awareness of the importance of women's rights, in particular the need for education for all girls.
However, it has not all been good news, and contrasting with the many positive stories of this week there was one that represented a set back. Two days ago it was announced that the annual United Nations-organised marathon in Gaza will not take place this year due to disagreements with Hamas government officials who have insisted that no women should participate, in a sign of how some men still believe that it is appropriate to try and control women's lives and reminding us how necessary is the focus provided by International Women’s Day.
A further, sinister, example of some men's prejudices against women emerged as recently as last week. The internet sales company Amazon was advertising T-shirts for sale which encouraged violence against women, using slogans that I will certainly not repeat, although one went so far as to encourage rape. The garments were removed as soon as both Amazon and the company selling the T-shirts began to be bombarded with texts, tweets and emails expressing outrage. However, it is instructive that someone, somewhere, must have sat down and drafted these slogans, clearly from the viewpoint that they were not only acceptable but that people—men of course—would be willing to buy them and then wear them, publicly stating that they regarded women as suitable objects for serious violence in various forms. It is telling that the company that produced the T-shirts was initially surprised at the reaction. I am pleased to say it soon got the message, which was rammed home in no uncertain terms as widespread anger inundated its social media sites, all of which had to be closed down as a result. The company said that it had received death threats and that its Twitter account was bombarded with scores of angry messages, many of which said, “Rape is not a joke”. It is appalling that in 2013 people still need to be reminded of that self-evident truth.
I want to highlight today one of the enduring issues surrounding the campaign for women’s equality. That concerns the pay gap between men and women. I have had an interest in that issue for a considerable time. Indeed, my university thesis in 1974 was on the implementation of the Equal Pay Act. It may be recalled that, although that Act got onto the statute book in 1970, there was a five-year lead-in period for employers to make the changes necessary to accommodate the legislation. That was always an optimistic aim, but I doubt that anybody then would have thought that, 40 years later, more than a quarter of the gender pay gap would remain to be filled. In 1975, women earned 36% less than median male hourly earnings; the latest available figure, which was issued in April last year in the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, is 9.6%. That represents the comparison between full-time workers, and excludes overtime earnings. But, of course, more men than women work overtime, and more women than men work part time, so the 9.6% figure gives a distorted view of the gap in actual take-home pay between men and women. Taking all employees into account, the gender pay gap in 2012 was 19.7%.
So only three-quarters of the journey that began four decades ago has been completed and much remains to be done before the destination is reached. Some years ago—2006 to the best of my knowledge—the report of the Women and Work Commission was published. The commission was ably led by my noble friend Lady Prosser, from whom we heard earlier in this debate. That report demonstrated that the gender pay gap in Britain was then one of the worst in Europe. Six years on, progress has certainly been made, but many of the underlying issues that underpin and perpetuate the gap remain.
I cite one example. There has been much publicity in recent years over certain public sector jobs where pay discrimination has been tolerated for years; too often, it should be said, with the connivance of the trade unions of which those women were members. Now, following industrial tribunal decisions and in some cases courts at the highest level, local authorities and some health authorities are faced with massive bills to give women the back pay that is due to them. That is a difficult situation for them as employers, but it is not the women's fault that the discrimination was allowed to persist for so long. It is totally unfair that some should attempt to make them feel guilty for seeking what is rightfully theirs. Public sector bodies ought to have seen this coming and acted accordingly. Some of them have claimed that they now face a choice between their legal commitments and maintaining services. They should face up to their responsibilities and ensure that women do not need to return to court to receive the fair settlement due to them. One means of dealing with this may be to offer an immediate lump sum, with staged future payments which would have the effect of enhancing women’s pensions over the years.
There are different issues in the private sector, where there is often much less transparency. I have spoken to people who say that they have been told by employers that disclosing their pay to work colleagues constitutes a disciplinary offence. That is surely unacceptable because it is no more and no less than a device to enable employers to pay less, certainly not more, than a fair rate, and it hurts female workers disproportionately. It also highlights the need not just for collective bargaining, but for trade unions to enforce it and to continue campaigning for equality of treatment for all in the workplace.
In conclusion, in almost all countries, women continue to be under-represented in decision-making positions. Women's work continues to be undervalued, underpaid, or not paid at all. That is why International Women’s Day is so important. It spells out our responsibility to work for enduring change in values and attitudes, a message clearly enunciated by noble Lords participating in this debate today.
Baroness Thornton
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, on initiating this debate, and particularly congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry on his great maiden speech. We look forward to more speeches from him as time goes on. My maiden speech was referred to in this debate. I have to say, it happened not just to me but to the noble Baronesses, Lady Uddin and Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer. We all made our maiden speeches about family-friendly working hours at 10 o’clock at night. Indeed, my children were in the gallery in their pyjamas watching me at the time.
We have had some brilliant speeches today. I am particularly drawn to the comments by the noble Baroness, Lady Heyhoe-Flint, about barriers to women in sports and clubs, being stuck in the car park, and so on. It reminded me of an experience I had about 30 years ago when I decided to throw my hat in the ring for selection for a by-election in Bradford, which is where I am from. I turned up to one of the selection meetings at a working men’s club. I was the only woman who was being seen. All the men walked in to take part in the meeting, but I was not allowed to walk in—I had to be signed in by the secretary of the club, because women were not allowed to be members. I am happy to say that I doubt whether that goes on in working men’s clubs these days.
International Women’s Day is a day for celebration, there is no doubt of that, and I am sure that noble Lords and the Minister will all be joining women across the world in singing “One Woman”, the International Women’s Day song which will be launched tomorrow. It is a musical celebration of women world wide, featuring more than 20 artists from across the world. Unlike the Minister, when the first International Women’s Day was launched by the United Nations in 1975, I was at the London School of Economics and the women’s group there had a party to celebrate it. However, I do not remember much about it.
As the Minister said, thousands of events will take place not only tomorrow but throughout the month of March to mark the economic, political and social achievements of women. As has already been mentioned by noble Lords, the theme which has been declared by the United Nations for 2013 is, “A promise is a promise: time for action to end violence against women”. In 2012 the theme was, “Empower rural women: end hunger and poverty”. In fact, every year since 1975 there has been a different theme. Parliaments and countries can choose their own theme for International Women’s Day, of course. In 2012, the European Parliament used a theme around equal pay for work of equal value. We can be proud of the 400 events in the United Kingdom. As my noble friend said, the United Nations website indicates that the UK is the most active country in the world in terms of celebrating International Women’s Day. It could be that other countries have not bothered to send in what activities are taking place, and certainly I am in favour of a few flowers being presented.
We can be proud of the role played by the UK on the international stage, and particularly of our role in the creation of UN Women, the United Nations entity for gender equality and the empowerment of women. When it was founded, the United Nations took an historic step in accelerating the organisation’s goals on gender equality and the empowerment of women. I am particularly proud that during the time I was in government with Harriet Harman and as part of the equalities team, we were key to the promotion and establishment of UN Women. In fact, on one occasion I had a tiny part to play. I was sent to an international women’s event and my job was to lobby some of the leading women from around the world to persuade them to persuade the United Nations to cough up the money to establish UN Women. That lobby included Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the president of Liberia. I have to say that she was one of the most impressive people that I have ever met in my life—and of course she was completely solid on the objectives we had in mind. I also congratulate the Government on the fact that they have continued to support and fund UN Women; indeed, according to the annual report which I read recently, they have increased their contribution.
It is certainly true that the United Nations has made significant progress over many decades in advancing gender equality through landmark agreements such as the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women—CEDAW—which was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill. It is also true to say that the United Kingdom is represented at all these bodies by cross-party groups of women. It is to the credit of this country that whichever Government are in power, they have undertaken to take representative groups of women to all of these events. I know that many of my noble friends have taken part in them over the years, particularly my noble friend Lady Gould.
In the Labour Party we are proud of the historic role we have played in supporting gender equality over the years. That support goes right back to the days of supporting the family allowance being paid to women. Moreover, Votes for Women was part of our original platform when we were founded as a party. We have supported all the equality legislation since the Second World War: the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the Equal Pay Act 1970, maternity rights and domestic violence legislation, the Equality Acts 2006 and 2010; and support for women at work and parents with children. As my noble friends Lady Nye and Lady Pitkeathley mentioned, we have the best record of any UK political party in terms of women’s representation with more women MPs than all the other political parties put together. We have near-equal representation of women and men in the devolved bodies, and many women representing their local communities on councils up and down the country.
I have absolutely no doubt that the two Ministers seated opposite me are totally committed to the representation of women in their parties and that, along with their colleagues, they have worked and endeavoured over the years to try to increase the representation of women. Indeed, I know they have done that because I have spoken about this to women in other political parties over many years. But the fact remains that if our political parties are left to their own devices in their selection processes—I include my own in this—predominantly, they are going to select men. That is why the Labour Party went down the road of all-women shortlists, and that is why in our target of 80 seats for the next general election—this is set out in a document that we published last week or the week before—half of the selections will be made from all-women shortlists. That is because we are determined that we should have a Parliament that represents the electorate and is at least 50% women. However, we cannot do that on our own. We need the other political parties to take positive action. I do not enjoy the fact that we force our constituency Labour parties to pick women candidates, but the reality is just as I have said: if left to their own devices, all but the most progressive will select men as their candidates, whether consciously or unconsciously.
Do we really believe that women are any less capable than men as politicians? I will just point to the fact that our all-women shortlist system has delivered a more representative and stronger Parliamentary Labour Party with a new generation of talented women MPs. I mention Rachel Reeves, Gloria De Piero, Stella Creasy, Bridget Phillipson and Luciana Berger. All of them were selected on all-women shortlists and I would dare anybody to suggest that they are second-class candidates or second-class representatives of their communities; of course they are not. It shows that positive action works. The challenge I would like to pose to the other political parties is that they have to take action if we are going to hit the target of 50% women in our Parliament.
I should like to raise two other matters because although this is a time for celebration, there are a couple of things that we need to look at. The first concerns older women—and I include myself in the group. We are a generation of active older women who have led very different lives from those of our mothers. We are the first generation, if you like, who have been doing it all. We have had jobs and we have brought up families. Some 71% of women aged between 45 and 64—I am towards the upper end of that group—think that employers offer too few opportunities to older women when recruiting staff. In 1983, only 13% of older women thought that. We live longer and we are in better health than our mothers were at our age. However, this group is losing out the most from the Government’s pension changes because they will have to continue working longer than they expected. This generation is angry about being regarded as “past it”, being overlooked for responsibility and promotion, and being prioritised for redundancy. Some of us are very annoyed that the wisdom and experience of older women are not valued in the same way as they are for older men. That is exemplified by the portrayal of older women on television, as we all know.
These women—I include myself—are holding families and communities together, a point made by the right reverend Prelate. We pick up the pieces. We look after the grandchildren because childcare costs are going up. We care for our elderly relatives as social care services are shredded. We are the ones being stretched in every direction. It is time that public policy caught up with this generation of older women. In the Labour Party we have launched the Commission on Older Women, chaired by Harriet Harman MP, to investigate the policy implications for women in their fifties and sixties and what they are facing, and to look for longer-term policy solutions. The commission will focus on older women in the workplace, older women and their caring responsibilities, and older women in public life. All I can say is: watch this space, because I think that the commission is going to produce some interesting results.
I turn now to the earlier end of women’s lives and the position of younger mothers. The noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, said that the Government have helped women, are positive about them, and are doing a great deal for them. In some senses they are, but I think we need to look at the objective evidence because some of it points in the opposite direction, particularly for young mothers. David Cameron promised to lead the most family-friendly Government ever, but since this coalition Government came to power, new mums have been among the hardest hit by the coalition’s tax and benefit changes. From April this year, the Government will restrict maternity pay to a 1% annual increase and by 2015, in real terms, this cut in maternity pay will effectively be a £180 “mummy tax” on working women, on top of the additional cuts being faced by new mums. Nationally, up to 1.2 million people, including previous children and dads alongside mums, will be affected by the mummy tax each year. We estimate—this is from the House of Commons Library so is almost certainly true—that 210,000 new mums will be hardest hit by this cap. That is why the Labour Party is launching a campaign for this International Women’s Day and for Mothering Sunday called “mums not millionaires”. At the same time as the Government are cutting taxes for people earning over £1 million, the figures compiled by the House of Commons Library confirm that the lowest-paid new mums will lose £1,300 during pregnancy and the baby’s first year, and a further £422 from cuts to child benefit over the same period. This is not a women-friendly agenda. As we celebrate this day, we should be looking at the facts and figures and not just the words and exhortations.
In conclusion, I join with everyone in the House in this celebration of women, their achievements and the progress they have made. However, as my noble friends Lady Massey and Lady Crawley said, this is a long road that we tread. As the noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, my noble friend Lord Mitchell and the noble Lord, Lord Black, said, this is a very tough road indeed for millions of women across the world. We should not forget that it was through political activity—sometimes militant political activity—that women won the vote and have made possible the progress that we celebrate today.
I make no apology for the political nature of my speech. If women do not push hard in every area, we will not make progress. Progress may sometimes be noisy and many millions of women have had to be very brave over the centuries. On International Women’s Day, we should remember with gratitude all those women to whom we owe so much.
Baroness Northover
My Lords, the debates in the House of Lords for International Women’s Day are always outstanding and this one has been no exception. There is such a huge range of experience and commitment among your Lordships in this area that it is a great privilege for me to respond for the Government. I start by paying a particular tribute to right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry, who chose to make his very moving maiden speech in this debate today and who will clearly make a major contribution to our debates in the Lords. I welcome him and, with him, hope that it will not be too long before we do indeed hear a maiden speech from a woman bishop.
We have marked International Women’s Day for more than a century, and it is right that we do so. The lives of women in this country have been transformed over that century, as my noble friend Lady Seccombe so clearly showed. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, noted this as the most profound social transformation, and she is surely right. For many of us, we are the first in our families to go to university, yet our daughters, as well as our sons, expect nothing less should they wish to do so. We have the vote and the right to own property, to be employed on equal terms and not to belong to our husbands, fathers or, for that matter, to our sons. However, as noble Lords have made very clear in their speeches, inequalities persist: women earn less and we have by far the larger responsibility for children, the home and the care of elderly relatives as well as working. As the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, the noble Baroness, Lady Nye, the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and others pointed out, women are less likely to be in the House of Commons or House of Lords, on boards, at the top of companies, in our Supreme Court, among our judges, on our sports boards, editors of newspapers and so on. We see progress but sometimes it seems to be at a snail’s pace. As the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, said, it is a long road. Where women are not able to fulfil their aspirations to play their full part, in whatever way that might be, as my noble friend Lady Stowell so effectively explained in relation to her friend Julie, that is quite simply a loss of talent. Our economy and, more importantly, entire society miss out.
Supporting the most vulnerable in our society has been fundamental to our approach. That is why we are cutting tax for more than 23 million working people, lifting 2 million out of income tax altogether, the majority of whom are women. We are making changes to our state pension that will provide enormous benefits to older women, who may have broken records or contributions because they took time out to care for children or the elderly. Our ring-fencing the health budget particularly assists women, who are greater users of healthcare than men, whether through maternity care, through taking their children for care or in later life. Our acceptance of the Dilnot proposals, addressing an issue that has plagued our health and social care system since the establishment of the NHS, and about which no party in power since has been willing to do anything other than undertake yet another inquiry, is game-changing. Noble Lords will recall that it is women who are disproportionately the recipients and givers of care.
We want to support women, empower them and, most importantly, transform the opportunities available to them. We are investing in education, expanding our apprenticeship programme and improving careers advice to encourage young women to make ambitious choices. As the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, suggests, there are areas of the labour market where women still seem invisible. We need to encourage women to choose subjects such as science, technology and engineering at A-level and at university to enable them to flourish in today’s economy. We are introducing shared parental leave, extending the right to request flexible working to all and working with business to ensure more women are in the boardroom.
The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, asked about progress in relation to women on boards. As my noble friend Lady Stowell said at Question Time, since the noble Lord, Lord Davies, issued his report, the proportion of women on boards has increased from 12.5% to 17.3%. As of yesterday, there are now only six all-male boards. The Women’s Business Council will also be making recommendations on how we support women executives progressing up the executive ladder. I do not think that there is a shortage of potential talent. I was a trustee in a leading organisation, and when I stood down I urged that more women should be appointed. However, I was told there were none. I mentioned a name; they said, “Yes, but besides her, there aren’t any”. I mentioned several others; and, as with the “Life of Brian” and the Romans, they said “Yes, but besides those there aren’t any”. To my satisfaction, that board is now chaired by one of the women I recommended.
We have role models elsewhere. This summer, we have seen so many. London 2012 was a triumph for women’s sport, showcasing positive role models such as Jess Ennis, Victoria Pendleton and Ellie Simmonds, as my noble friend Lady Heyhoe Flint made so very clear. Hearing my noble friend on the subject of various sexist golf courses reminded me of an experience I had in Saudi Arabia. I was part of a parliamentary delegation staying in a very western hotel. I hope that my noble friend Lady Heyhoe Flint will appreciate that I took my swimsuit with me and, one evening, went down to the pool to swim. I was told that I could not because it was not the “women’s hour” to swim. I asked when the women’s hour was and was told that there was not one. There are more women taking part in sport but there is clearly so much more that we need to do and, as my noble friend Lady Heyhoe Flint has made clear, we need to do so much more especially in the running of sports. UK Sport and Sport England have included an expectation that all the national governing bodies will have at least 25% women on their boards by 2017.
As well as discrimination, girls and women face very serious challenges, including violence. Various noble Lords have made reference to that, and I assure my noble friend Lord Sheikh and others that we seek to tackle violence against women and girls and take it very seriously. We have protected central government funding for tackling violence against women and, last year, we announced that forced marriage will now become a criminal offence in England and Wales. We are also clear that we will change damaging behaviour only when we have changed the underlying attitudes that cause that behaviour, a point referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Nye. Prevention is key, which is why, with our teenage relationship abuse and rape prevention campaigns, we are helping young people to recognise abuse and understand when to seek help. The noble Baroness, Lady Nye, asked about PSHE and when the outcome of the review will come through. The Government’s internal review was extended to take account of the outcome of the wider national curriculum review and the Department for Education expects to make an announcement shortly. I assure her and my noble friend Lady Benjamin that the statutory guidance for sex and relationship education makes clear that schools should ensure that young people develop positive values, realising that this certainly applies to sexual relationships.
The noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, and others mentioned the powerful One Billion Rising campaign, and it is extremely important to have that kind of campaign keeping us all on our toes. The noble Baroness specifically mentioned FGM and rightly paid tribute to the work in this area of her colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Rendell. The Government are also frustrated, as was the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, by the lack of prosecutions in the past 25 years. We welcome the fact that Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, who published a CPS action plan in November, is seeking to improve prosecutions for FGM. As the noble Baroness will know, a major new programme is also being designed by DfID to support efforts to end the practice in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. This has been led by my honourable friend Lynne Featherstone, whose aim is that this should disappear within a generation. She is formidable and I am absolutely delighted that she is taking this forward.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Howe and Lady Healy, asked about women in the penal system. I assure them that we fully understand the challenges that women in the penal system face, and that many have suffered all sorts of problems in the past and maybe suffer still from domestic abuse, alcohol and drug abuse and mental problems. We are striving hard to follow through from the work done by the previous Government to keep women out of prison. I visited Holloway prison and realised very strongly how important it is, not only to the women themselves but to the children who are usually dependent on these women. I saw in Holloway Prison the support that is given for drug and alcohol abuse. We have accepted the majority of the Corston report and are actively taking it forward. I assure noble Lords that my noble friend Lord McNally really gets this.
The noble Baroness, Lady Healy, asked about pregnant refugees and asylum seekers and the response to the report on dispersal. We introduced a new policy last year which includes a commitment not to move any pregnant women within the last four weeks of pregnancy, and any asylum seeker is moved only if it is safe to do so.
Noble Lords have addressed the sexualisation of girls and the risks thereby. We need to address the confidence of girls and, as my noble friend Lady Benjamin said, their need for dignity and the dangers of that sexualisation. The Government appointed Reg Bailey to look into the issue of the sexualisation of children and young people, and he published his recommendations last year. We are using these to work with media, business and regulators to implement, and they include stricter guidelines from the Advertising Standards Authority on sexualised on-street adverts, the launch of the ParentPort website for people to make complaints about media and advertising—we heard some horrendous stories earlier—and an agreement from four of the largest internet service providers on a code of practice, including active choice on whether to access age-restricted material. I am sure this is an area we will need to continue to monitor extremely closely.
The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, mentioned invisible women and flagged it up in relation to politics and other areas. I hope I can reassure noble Lords that we have extended the ability of political parties to use women-only shortlists to 2030. Labour transformed the House of Commons with these and although the initial reaction of the press to “Blair’s Babes” was horrendous, nobody would term them that now. They contribute in a formidable fashion and this has acted as a spur to the other political parties, including my own, and I pay tribute to what Labour did in this regard. We are also working with the main political parties to collect and publish diversity data on election candidates, to give us better insight into where we need to target efforts. I note what was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, in this regard, and on the wider fields I can assure her that we are working with the Runnymede Trust to look at the general barriers facing, for example, Bangladeshi and Pakistani women in the workforce.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady O’Neill, talked about public appointments; we aim to ensure that 50% of new public appointees are women by the end of this Parliament. We have established the Centre for Public Appointments in the Cabinet Office, which is working throughout Whitehall and the private sector to modernise recruitment practices, and we will keep a very close eye on this.
I heard the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, with enormous interest and I look forward to her profound thinking being applied to the Equality and Human Rights Commission. She has asked me whether we could have a debate on CEDAW before July and I will of course feed this into the normal channels. Meanwhile, I encourage all noble Lords to put this down for debate at the first opportunity in the new Session, and the noble Baroness might like to do that herself. I will feed that back.
Noble Lords have made reference to the work that we have done overseas. I am extremely proud of that, and I thank my noble friend Lady Brinton for congratulating us on delivering 0.7% of GNI on aid. Noble Lords who have referred to the situation of women and girls overseas have pointed out that they are of course the poorest and the most marginalised. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, was right to flag up the importance of UN Women.
We have put girls and women front and centre of our international development efforts. What we have heard from my noble friends Lady Brinton, Lord Sheikh and Lord Black, and the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, shows why we have done this and why it is so very important. Every year, more than a third of a million women die in pregnancy and childbirth. Almost two-thirds of those who are illiterate are women. Women own less than 10% of the world’s property. One in nine girls is forced into marriage before their 14th birthday. DfID’s key aims in addressing the situation for women and girls focus on delaying first pregnancy and supporting safe childbirth—again, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, referred to the challenges here—getting economic assets directly to girls and women, getting girls through secondary school and preventing violence against girls and women. They are major programmes.
In the past year alone, we have provided nearly 750,000 women with access to financial services, and supported more than 2.5 million girls into primary school and 250,000 girls into secondary schools. We know that education is critical as far as girls are concerned and that girls going through school are likely to be safer, to marry later and to have fewer children. It is of benefit to them, their families, their societies and their countries. There is also an economic dividend from that, which we recognise.
I can assure the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, that we have improved property rights and land rights for nearly 250,000 women, supported 1 million additional women to use modern methods of family planning and helped 300,000 girls and women to access security and justice. We had a passionate debate in the Chamber last night on preventing sexual violence in conflicts. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry is right to flag up the especial vulnerability of women and girls in conflict. I am delighted that my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary is pushing forward an important initiative to increase awareness and data collection and to bring perpetrators to justice. We recognise that sexual violence is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions and is liable to be seen as a war crime to be brought to the International Criminal Court. It is important that we publicise that fact and make sure that the structure is in place to gather data and that cases are brought, with the intention of trying to curb the dreadful abuse of women in these situations. Right now, we have teams of experts in Syria, for example, working on just that task.
I assure my noble friend Lord Black that we are acutely aware of the risk of AIDS. He has clearly shown the vulnerability of women in that situation.
I appreciate the strong support for our international programmes right across the House. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, is right about the power of working together. She and I have seen, as her noble friend Lady Royall will also have seen, the power of working together across the political spectrum in Pakistan. There, in a National Assembly of 270 or so, there is a quota for 60 women’s seats. When I visited in 2006, women parliamentarians were marginalised, but they have used their block of seats in the most extraordinary fashion in the past five years. Working together across political parties, they have identified laws that discriminate against women and had them thrown out. They have moved on to laws that protect women; for example, on workplace harassment and criminalising acid attacks. The women have carried out 70% of all parliamentary business and their achievements are remarkable. I visited the survivors of acid attacks; for example, a woman who sought a divorce from her husband and he threw acid at her. If he was not to have her, then no one should want her. She sat bravely on the steps of the Parliament when the Bill came up, supported by civil society and highlighted in the media. The women persuaded their male colleagues and saw the Bill passed. I think that the work of the Pakistani women parliamentarians is a beacon to others and a model to show what can be achieved worldwide, and I salute them.
The noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, drew our attention to the continuing plight of women in Iran, who have seen a further erosion of their rights after being excluded from many fields of study at Iranian universities. I found her exposition of Islamic doctrine enlightening, and it is no wonder that the Iranian regime is concerned. We can assure her that we make clear to the Iranian regime how we view its record on human rights, because, as someone said earlier—I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill—women’s rights are not in contrast to men’s rights; women’s rights are human rights. They are all part of human rights. We make very clear to the Iranian regime how we regard this. I also agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, that, in the light of this development, it is vital that we attract talented Iranian women to study at UK universities.
This has been a wide-ranging and informative debate. We are determined to do everything in our power to transform the rights and opportunities for women both here and across the world. We have achieved a huge amount in the United Kingdom. I am constantly reminded of that when I see some of the situations in which women find themselves in developing countries. Yet we do not sit back: we realise how much more there is to achieve in the UK and we work with those in developing countries who seek, often against enormous odds, to ensure that the position of women and girls is transformed in the lifetimes of those born today. I beg to move.
Commonwealth and Commonwealth Charter
(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
That this House takes note of developments in the Commonwealth and the Commonwealth Charter.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, this is a timely debate ahead of Commonwealth Week, which starts on Monday and provides a platform for countries around the world to join together in celebration of the links that they share as members of the Commonwealth. As my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs recently affirmed in his response to the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee report on the role and future of the Commonwealth, the Government are committed to strengthening our engagement with, and our role within, the Commonwealth. A strong Commonwealth is important to the national interests of all its member states. It can help us to promote democratic values, good governance and prosperity. This is no longer the British Commonwealth but a network of like-minded nations with shared history, values and interests within which the UK plays an active and leading role.
One of the greatest challenges we face is ensuring that the Commonwealth keeps pace with today’s changing world. Much work has already been done to respond to this challenge and the UK has been active in this. Our Commonwealth policy over the past two years has focused on modernising and improving the organisation’s internal institutions and strengthening respect for its values. We are pleased that modernisation discussions that started before the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth in 2011 reached a conclusion last year, and that the heads have endorsed a number of reforms including the new Commonwealth charter. That we were able to agree so many of these reforms is a testament to the work of my right honourable friend the Minister of State for the Commonwealth and my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford, whose speech will follow mine. In some ways, this debate is a celebration of my noble friend’s two and a half years in the FCO as Commonwealth Minister, to which I pay tribute.
I hope that all noble Lords will join me in welcoming the adoption of the Commonwealth charter, which we see as one of the most important outcomes from the Commonwealth modernisation process. The charter conveys clearly the values that the Commonwealth stands for, bringing together commitments set out in previous declarations and affirmations. Next week, the charter will be presented to Her Majesty the Queen as head of the Commonwealth and launched across the Commonwealth.
For the first time in its 64-year history, the Commonwealth now has a single document setting out the core values and aspirations of its members, and it is all the more significant because it has come at a time when human rights and democratic values are demanded more vocally than ever by citizens across the world. It is now important that we work collectively to raise the charter’s profile, both within the UK and throughout the Commonwealth, to embed it within the Commonwealth’s architecture and ensure that all its members uphold those values. We support the Commonwealth Secretary-General’s call for members to launch the charter nationally during next week’s Commonwealth Week. We are delighted that debates are taking place in both Houses and we are in touch with Commonwealth, civil society and youth organisations to promote the charter in the UK.
We recognise, too, that there need to be mechanisms in place to ensure that all Commonwealth countries support the values that they have agreed to in the charter. We strongly supported the reform of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, adopted in Perth, giving the group more teeth to respond to violations of Commonwealth values. Through its timely and robust response to the political crisis in the Maldives last year, the group demonstrated that it could work in new ways and make a positive contribution to international reconciliation efforts. We would like to see the group demonstrate that it can play a valuable and effective role in addressing a range of situations of concern.
Our work on the modernisation agenda has helped to focus the Commonwealth on the importance of democracy and respect for core values. This creates the conditions in which businesses can flourish by giving them confidence to invest in trade. That in turn creates more jobs and drives greater prosperity. This is what the Prime Minister has called the “golden thread”: the link between the rule of law, effective but limited government, strong civil institutions, well protected property rights, open markets and successful and sustainable economic development. The Commonwealth Week theme this year, “Opportunity through Enterprise”, is particularly relevant for encouraging innovation at this time of global economic challenge.
Commonwealth members share principles of democracy, the rule of law and good governance, and we have similar legal systems. These provide solid foundations for doing business and a platform for trade, investment, development and, all pulled together, prosperity. Some studies have estimated this Commonwealth effect of a shared legal and regulatory market framework to be between 20% and 50% in trade advantage. As it should, the UK out-trades its European comparators—Germany, Italy and France—in trade with Commonwealth countries.
The Commonwealth network has influence in nearly every international country grouping, making it a key vehicle for promoting regional trade integration. India, South Africa, Canada, Australia and the UK make up a quarter of the G20, the world’s premier global economic forum at present. The Commonwealth exports over £3 trillion of goods and services a year, so the potential for all of us is great; but for trade with Commonwealth countries truly to flourish the Commonwealth needs to encourage conditions that will allow it to do so. One example is to remove barriers to trade, such as unnecessary red tape and, sadly too often, corruption.
Trade is not the only way to increase prosperity. The Department for International Development’s Bilateral Aid Review in 2011 confirmed that many Commonwealth states still need international aid and support. DfID has increased the proportion of bilateral programme expenditure to Commonwealth countries. Total DfID bilateral spend in them is projected to be £1.8 billion in 2012-13. Countries also benefit from regional funding.
We are working, too, to increase the Commonwealth’s engagement with Britain’s overseas territories that share many of the challenges facing the small Commonwealth members. The British Government are the largest financial contributor to Commonwealth institutions. Our contributions amount to approximately £40 million annually, about a third of the institution’s costs. Of this, DfID provides around £34 million to support the Commonwealth’s development work. We are investing in the Commonwealth, not simply declaring our commitment. From 2011 to 2015, DfID will also provide £87 million for Commonwealth scholarships for developing countries. The FCO provides support for Chevening scholarships to around 700 students a year for over 116 countries, including many Commonwealth ones.
DfID’s Multilateral Aid Review in 2011 concluded that one of the Commonwealth’s key strengths is its unique network of networks, as my noble friend Lord Howell has often told us. It saw that the Commonwealth’s secretariat has a key platform for partnerships, and as a leading voice on global issues and a niche development assistance provider. To continue to add value when there are many larger and often better resourced development providers, the Secretariat needs to improve its efficiency and effectiveness and to carve out a niche role for itself. The secretariat’s strategic plan, another product of the modernisation agenda, must play a vital role to make this a reality. Swift and unequivocal agreement on, and implementation of, a realistic and more targeted plan is key to guaranteeing continued donor funding for its programmes.
This year offers many opportunities to drive forward work on the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth Youth Ministers Meeting in Papua New Guinea in April will give young people an opportunity to express their views on current issues and discuss the post-2015 millennium development goals agenda, an area of work in which my right honourable friend the Prime Minister is strongly engaged in his role as co-chair of the High Level Panel. Sri Lanka will host the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in November. No decisions have yet been made about UK attendance at this event. Ahead of that meeting we will of course talk to Sri Lanka, as we would to any host, about demonstrating its commitment to upholding Commonwealth values of good governance and respect for human rights.
I am sure that all in this House look forward to the UK hosting the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014. The games are important, not least because they are as much about promoting Commonwealth values, a key element of the Commonwealth brand, as they are about building prosperity, celebrating sport and deepening links between young people and the Commonwealth nations.
Next year we will also begin to commemorate the centenary of the Great War—the First World War, as we now call it—in which the then British Empire called on the resources of all its dominions and colonies. There were 1.5 million Indians in the world’s largest volunteer army, hundreds of thousands of Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders as well as others from South Africa, the West Indies, and east and west Africa. The shared commemoration of common experience —some of it heroic, some of it bitter and ill planned—will also remind us of our common heritage.
This Government came into office with the determination to reinvigorate the Commonwealth and Britain’s relationship with the Commonwealth and its member states. It is our firm belief that we should capitalise on all the networks and relationships at our disposal in order to promote our prosperity, stability and security and to contribute to a more prosperous and stable global order. We have seen notable progress and, through the modernisation discussions, a clearer vision of where the Commonwealth’s real advantages lie. The Commonwealth charter is a strong statement of the organisation’s values and we should collectively look to raise its profile, but we recognise that the Commonwealth’s future credibility is linked to its ability to uphold and protect these values as set out in the charter. We remain committed to ensuring that the Commonwealth and its members live up to these values. If we continue to push forward the reform process, I am confident that we can sustain the Commonwealth as an invaluable global network. The interest in joining the Commonwealth that a number of prospective members are evincing is an indication of the continued vitality of the institution. I beg to move.
Lord Howell of Guildford
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his kind reference. I am looking forward to hearing the words of the right reverend and noble Lord, Lord Williams of Oystermouth. I gather it is not strictly speaking a maiden speech, but I look forward to it with great anticipation. The noble and right reverend Lord is joining us on what Her Majesty has called the platform of the future, and his voice will be eagerly listened to on these affairs.
I shall start my brief intervention by quoting from an article in the Daily Telegraph earlier this week which said about Britain that,
“the best vision of what its 21st century economy could become”,
is,
“a Britain which rediscovers the Asian and wider global links that propelled the country’s economic growth in the 19th century and could do so again”.
That is entirely right. It is not a dream but a practical vision. Here, in what we now call the emerging economies and powers, is where our future prosperity and destiny clearly lie. That is something that I—not only me, of course —have been saying for 20 years.
The Commonwealth network is a vital and central part of this totally new landscape and this new scene. I once described the Commonwealth as the “necessary network”, in the sense that if it did not exist we would certainly have to invent something very like it. My right honourable friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary was showing commendable prescience when a year or so ago he described the Commonwealth as,
“a cornerstone of our foreign policy”.
The peoples of the Commonwealth are family, not foreigners. Commonwealth Governments may be unfriendly at times, awkward, difficult or, frankly, even hostile, but these are family matters, not foreign policy matters. Today’s Commonwealth is an all-powerful network concept. The Governments and policy-making establishments in a number of countries may not have fully understood this but, outside Government, the peoples, businesses and civil societies of the Commonwealth nations certainly have. It is both people-driven and driven by the magnetism of shared values, language and culture, a network of peoples and societies as much as of Governments and states—possibly even more so.
The Commonwealth is of course a generator of soft-power linkages and contacts on an unparalleled scale. That is crucial to our national interests here. It used to be said that trade follows the flag. Today, the situation is that trade, capital flows and investment, inward and outward, follow the softening-up of markets through the intertwining of cultures, languages, social contacts, professions and common interests, all nowadays instantly and continuously communicated. This can be even more important than winning orders through one-off trade missions.
The Commonwealth family has evolved as a design of great intricacy, subtlety and complexity, and is a true reflection of a very complex world. That has not been so for 20 years past. So completely were Commonwealth markets washed out of British concerns in the previous century that, even today, it is frankly very hard to come by any statistics of what is now happening with incredible speed across the global trade and investment pattern. Most figures are gloriously out of date. However, we know that exports to Commonwealth countries have jumped by 120% in the past decade, and much more if one just looks at services. We know that a fast-growing Commonwealth GDP is poised to overtake the GDP of the entire European Union, and that intra-Commonwealth trade has been rising fast. We know that vast new consumer markets are opening up in India, south Asia, parts of Africa and Latin America. We know that thanks in part to the new shale oil and gas revolution, which is totally transforming the world’s energy balance, many African countries now face a far brighter future. We know that countries such as Australia and Canada, with which we now co-locate embassies—which is excellent news—and Malaysia are turning out to be both our best allies and powerful sources of finance for our investment needs.
It should be no surprise that other countries want to join what is clearly seen as one of the world’s best clubs, with clear advantages for its members. Of course they want to join. Anyone can see that the Commonwealth badge of trust and commitment to the rule of law, once earned, are good for business, and I hope that the new Commonwealth charter will make it very much more so. As the noble Lord rightly said, a string of countries have expressed interest in being associated with the Commonwealth. Could the Republic of Ireland even be among them? I have had clear signs of interest from Dublin that suggest that it could.
Most important of all are the links of learning and education at all levels, and the personal contact and friendship that these bring to every corner of the Commonwealth system. We know that this is where the real spread of sympathies, values and good business and trade begins. It is a similar story in area after area: legal and judicial systems, administration, medicine, accountancy, the creative arts and science. The Commonwealth may no longer be Anglocentric, but this is where our interests and influence radiate out and where our readymade UK opportunities truly lie.
This is really our Great British repositioning. This must be our strategy and our narrative. Not everyone yet sees or grasps what has happened, or how a transformed Commonwealth coincides again with our global future and interests and makes for us a vast asset. However, it is here that our energies need to be directed as never before if we want to survive and prosper in a thoroughly dangerous and uncertain world.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
My Lords, it is good to follow the noble Lord, a fine Commonwealth advocate, who must blush at the tributes made to him in the FAC’s report published last November on the Commonwealth. With him, I look forward to the contribution from the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Williams, my compatriot from Swansea.
Of course, the Commonwealth stands for the highest ideals of human rights, the rule of law and good governance, summed up in successive declarations—Singapore, Harare and, finally, the Charter of the Commonwealth, which was agreed last December. It is unique and diverse, with valuable soft-power networks. Small countries, such as the Caribbean and Pacific islands and the members of the overseas territories, walk that much taller as members of the club. For us and for them, the commonwealth of networks—the unofficial Commonwealth—is of importance. Of course, as parliamentarians, we pay tribute to the work of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.
Given those high aspirations, it is hardly surprising if the reality sometimes falls short of the ideal. This is well illustrated by the Perth CHOGM’s response to the Eminent Persons Group’s recommendations, particularly the failure to agree the proposed human rights commissioner, who should be independent. CMAG is not enough. Of course, there is the Commonwealth’s failure on election monitoring because of the reluctance to criticise other members of the club.
What about Commonwealth mediation in disputes involving other Commonwealth countries? Certainly the Secretary-General, Emeka Anyaoku, played a significant role in helping to keep the new South Africa within the Commonwealth.
As for today, one sees the impotence of the Commonwealth on the problems of Kashmir, Cyprus, the Maldives and Sri Lanka. Recent events show a lack of mutual understanding between Commonwealth countries. On 13 February this year, India gave refuge in its high commission to former President Nasheed of the Maldives, who had been ousted in a coup. Yet in only the past few days, one had heard that, contrary to the agreement between the Maldives and India, the former President was arrested following his leaving the High Commission of India.
There is, of course, a great rivalry between Commonwealth India and China in the Indian Ocean, where China seeks to build a “string of pearls” of bases. Yet on 18 February, Pakistan assisted the Chinese ambitions by giving China management of the Port of Gwadar on the coast of Baluchistan. Of course, China already has a foothold in the Seychelles and strong influence in Sri Lanka, half the aid to which comes from China.
The current debate about the choice of location of the next CHOGM is instructive, and was rather glossed over by the Minister in his opening remarks. Is priority to be given to the values of the Commonwealth or to avoiding the displeasure of Sri Lanka, as the Foreign Affairs Committee report stated? Surely the Government cannot sit indefinitely on the fence. Can they honestly say that there is a serious prospect of change in Sri Lanka between now and the time of the CHOGM in the late autumn? Diversity and consensus are important, but they cover political and economic weaknesses.
On economics, there is no prospect of a free trade area, and hardly surprisingly countries take hard-nosed decisions on contracts: for example, India’s recent decision to buy Mirages rather than Typhoons. CMAG is hardly effective. The Commonwealth Secretary-General is condemned, pace the Perth CHOGM, to be a secretary and not a general. Of the 58 countries in the world where capital punishment is legal, 36 are in the Commonwealth. In this week’s Kenya election, the apparently leading candidate, Uhuru Kenyatta, is an indictee of the International Criminal Court. Our high commissioner and others would find it difficult to speak to him if elected.
I have been more critical than normal, but this needs to be an antidote to the rather blind and excessive claims for the Commonwealth. It is important for us, but it is a second-tier organisation compared with NATO for defence and the EU for commerce and international political clout. Increasingly, member countries give more priority to their own region and to bilateral relations. Countries such as India give relatively low priority to the Commonwealth. Let us laud the diversity and ideals but not lapse into a starry-eyed overload of Commonwealth capabilities, as the Foreign Affairs Committee emphasised.
Contrary to the FCO response to the FAC report, there is a gap between words and deeds, between the Commonwealth of reality and the Commonwealth of illusion. Yes, let us seek to make the Commonwealth even better in its engagement in the world, but its values remain an important and relevant benchmark for perhaps an impossible ideal.
Lord Hussain
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, for securing this debate, and I apologise that I was not present for the first couple of minutes.
I would like to speak on Pakistan and its membership of the Commonwealth. Pakistan covers an area of 796,095 square kilometres, approximately equal to the combined land areas of France and the United Kingdom. It is the 36th largest nation by total area, with a population exceeding 180 million people, and is the sixth most populous country in the world. It is the second largest country by population in the Commonwealth, after India.
Pakistan is a federal parliamentary republic consisting of four provinces and four federal territories. It is an ethnically and linguistically diverse country, with a similar variation in its geography and wildlife. A regional and middle power, Pakistan has the seventh largest standing armed forces in the world and is also a nuclear power, being the only nation in the Muslim world, and the second in south Asia, to have that status. It has a semi-industrialised economy that is the 27th largest in the world in purchasing power and the 47th largest in nominal GDP.
Pakistan’s post-independence history has been characterised by periods of military rule, political instability and conflicts with neighbouring India. The country has also suffered greatly and continues to do so in loss of human lives and in economic terms because of the instability and lack of peace in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Pakistan continues to face challenging problems, including terrorism, poverty, illiteracy and corruption. It is a founding member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and is a member of the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, the Next Eleven economies, SAARC, ECO, D8 and the G20 developing nations.
Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma visited Pakistan last February, 2012, and said:
“Pakistan holds a special place in the Commonwealth. It is one of the eight countries that came together in 1949 to lay the foundations of the modern Commonwealth. Since then, Pakistan has been on a national journey, and so too has the Commonwealth as it has grown in global size, relevance and impact. Today, the Commonwealth has 54 member countries in every continent, of every size and stage of development, accounting for one third of humanity. And Pakistan remains a highly valued member.
A visit to Pakistan for a Commonwealth Secretary-General is always an opportunity to take the pulse of the relationship – to seek direction from leaders in Pakistan on how it wants to see the Commonwealth continue to grow, and to see how the Commonwealth can continue to support and add value to Pakistan nationally. We always meet political leaders but also a wide range of others in society to discuss how the Commonwealth can offer partnership, to strengthen our global networks and collaborations, and to advance the fundamental values and principles which lie at the heart of our Commonwealth family”.
Pakistan also highly values its membership of the Commonwealth. It plays an active role in the activities of the Commonwealth and endeavours to promote the Commonwealth charter. Pakistan looks towards the Commonwealth for mediation with India over Kashmir, and to guarantee the peace and prosperity of the 1.2 billion people on the Indian subcontinent.
The Lord Bishop of Leicester
My Lords, it is a particular privilege to stand as the appetiser to the speech of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Williams of Oystermouth, bringing, as he has already done to this Chamber in another capacity, a unique experience of global affairs through his visits to all parts of the Anglican communion. We on this Bench have so many reasons to be thankful for that and to appreciate at first hand the extremely high esteem in which he is held in so many of the countries of the Commonwealth.
There are three particular reasons why, as Bishop of Leicester, I felt it right to contribute to this debate. The first is because the history of my city in the past 40 years is quite inexplicable without reference to the Commonwealth. The Ugandan Asians, arriving 40 years ago after Idi Amin’s expulsions, set in train a series of migrations from the subcontinent, Africa, and more recently from around the world, which have transformed the culture, economy and reputation of the city for the better. They have also embedded networks of family relationships, friendships and business connections with Commonwealth countries in south Asia and east and west Africa in particular. Further, they bring a familiarity with the concept of Commonwealth as a network of different religions, cultures and ethnicities under a common leadership for the common good.
Further, the three world-class universities of Leicester, Loughborough and De Montfort all educate large numbers of young people from Commonwealth countries, as any visit to a degree ceremony demonstrates, with the immense potential that that creates for inter- generational influence and partnership. Those universities share the concerns of many others expressed in the Home Affairs Committee’s report about the serious effects of a restrictive student visa policy on the wider interests of the United Kingdom.
Secondly, I echo the concerns of others about the serious human rights abuses in Sri Lanka and the very questionable decision to hold the 2013 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Colombo. Some 5,000 Tamils have found their way to Leicester in recent years. They have their own temple, the priest of which is a Tamil refugee whose family were killed in the civil war. Many of these families know at first hand the consequences of the human rights record in that country, in which 12,000 Sri Lankans have disappeared, of whom the Government have confirmed that 6,500 are dead.
Recently, in his pastoral letter to the Church of Ceylon, the Bishop of Colombo called on members of the church to fast, pray and lament over the state of the nation, after what he described as,
“the complete collapse of the rule of law there”.
He went on to say:
“The breakdown of such accountability is a process that has been building up for the past several years.
It has now climaxed in the recent events that have seen both the Executive and the Legislature disregarding the provisions of the very Constitution which they swore to uphold and defend, giving the appearance of a country ruled on the principle that ‘Might is Right’.
The numerous warnings that the Church, other religious organizations and civil society bodies repeatedly issued have been ignored. There is currently a climate of fear and helplessness, where people remain silent rather than speak out against rampant injustice, intimidation, violence and falsehoods”.
I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, will be able to give the House some further assurance as to Her Majesty’s Government’s engagement with this.
Thirdly, I draw attention to the capacity of the Anglican Communion’s network of partnerships with dioceses in Commonwealth countries to plan and execute exchanges between individuals and communities for mutual learning and understanding. From Leicester two years ago, 24 junior clergy from towns and villages across the diocese visited Trichy Tanjore in Tamil Nadu in south India, establishing friendships and links that change outlooks and perceptions for a lifetime. They were followed by a group of young adults from sixth forms and colleges, experiencing at first hand a range of development programmes with tea planters, Dalits and fishing communities. Their experience “conscientatised” them to many of the issues around tax avoidance and the hiding of money from public scrutiny that so massively reduces revenues that could promote development.
At the same time, we are planning similar visits to our links in Tanzania. Schools from Leicester, Tanzania and south India are now in regular contact, and we are in the process of creating a triangular relationship between churches and communities in the United Kingdom, in Tanzania and in south India. These friendships and relationships are a vivid reminder that the Commonwealth is more than a political or economic entity and its significance extends beyond the political classes. I hope that that vision of the Commonwealth will be deepened and broadened by our debate today.
Lord Williams of Oystermouth
I echo the gratitude expressed by other noble Lords to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, for securing this discussion on a profoundly significant and timely question. It is a particular privilege to begin my recycled life in your Lordships’ House by speaking on this subject.
I note, as have other noble Lords, the wholly distinctive character of the Commonwealth as a family of independent nations allied not primarily for military, or even economic, security but by a shared history that has been translated into a shared vision of ethical politics. The proposed Commonwealth Charter, which has rightly been so warmly welcomed, sets out the main lines of this ethical vision with clarity and force and we must all hope that it will work as an unambiguous point of reference in dealing with crises and failures in the life of individual Commonwealth states, to which reference has already been made.
I draw special attention to the points made about the eradication of all kinds of discrimination—especially today mentioning discrimination against women—a properly pluralistic and transparent political culture, environmental priorities and the protection of more vulnerable states. In short, the charter defines an impressive project that deserves the strongest support from this country and its Government. For this project to be realised, a number of commitments on the part of the United Kingdom will need to be honoured and developed. The extensive support given to Commonwealth students, not least through DfID and the FCO, remains a key element in this. I was very much encouraged to hear the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, underlining this in his opening remarks.
We could enumerate the fruits of these exchanges at length, but perhaps the most important thing to note is the way in which Commonwealth students can be equipped to promote a transparent and accountable political culture in their own contexts, in large part by the experience that they gain here of active civil society networks. Even where it is a matter of students coming from so-called developed countries in the Commonwealth, there is still an agenda of building and cementing partnerships and learning to collaborate effectively in support of the more vulnerable members of the family. We should therefore applaud the support given as part of our development programme to such student opportunities and keep a sharp eye out for any suggestion that there are easy economies to be made by reducing these. That would be a very short-term view: if we indeed want a stable and just international environment, the Commonwealth will play its part by fostering cadres of young leaders with a strong commitment to civil society and human rights.
We need to keep under review those aspects of our Border Agency activities which may impinge negatively on the welcome offered to those who come from the Commonwealth to study, a point touched upon by the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Leicester. This does not apply only to students. Is it really appropriate, for example, that a respected academic from a developed Commonwealth country should be required to provide for the central administration an account of every trip that he or she makes away from their academic base? I refer to a case that has lately become somewhat notorious in Cambridge. Similarly, the immense complications that attend the visa system for many who plan short-stay study trips or attendance at conferences or training events in the UK have not done much to win hearts and minds. I think back to the hours spent by former colleagues at Lambeth Palace arguing about the bona fides of bishops and others from Commonwealth nations seeking to attend church gatherings here. I do not suggest that there is a quick fix to these concerns, only that the current situation maximises the possibilities of embarrassment and unfairness and needs constant monitoring and review.
I move briefly to a second point. The Commonwealth Charter’s clarity about transparency and the vision of what a moment ago I called a stable and just international environment should combine to prompt some continuing questions about the effectiveness of tax governance in Commonwealth countries. Effective and fair taxation would be agreed by all of us to be a cornerstone of good political governance and social stability, and that point has been underlined very strongly in a recent Commonwealth Secretariat paper. Christian Aid, of which I have the honour to be chair-designate, has estimated that $160 billion are lost annually to developing economies worldwide, many of them Commonwealth states, because of the evasion of local tax by multinational interests. At the same time, ironically, a significant number of Commonwealth states and British Overseas Territories function as tax havens, and so compound those problems.
Her Majesty’s Government have given welcome signs of concern about these matters and they will be on the agenda for the next G8 meeting. I trust that others will join me in hoping that the Government will bring some pressure to bear within the Commonwealth itself on these matters, looking to a commitment to better sharing of information on hidden assets and perhaps raising the matter at this year’s Overseas Territories Joint Ministerial Council.
Those issues represent wide cross-party concern; but more importantly for today, they are entirely in line with the vision so eloquently set out in the Commonwealth Charter. The potential of our Commonwealth to be a beacon of equitable practice is very great, and the will is manifestly there. I trust that today’s debate may assist us towards a future in which we may continue to be proud of our unique Commonwealth family as a model of both cultural diversity and moral convergence in our world.
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, as a member of an Anglican church, it is a great privilege to respond to the maiden speech of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Williams of Oystermouth, as a life Peer. He was in my view an unsung modernising archbishop. Noble Lords can now find churches in skate board parks, care homes and even new monastic orders due to the archbishop’s innovation called Fresh Expressions. This also led to the creation of vicars called pioneers, who go to set up a church, not become the vicar of an existing church.
The role of the archbishop is also to speak truth to power, and the archbishop was known for his public opposition to the Iraq war and similar ruffling of the feathers of the political right, while increasing the sales of the New Statesman when he was guest editor. The noble and right reverend Lord has an unfailingly gracious way of causing “good trouble”.
It is particularly apt that the former archbishop’s maiden speech is in this debate, because in that role, I am informed by Lambeth Palace, he visited no less than 19 Commonwealth countries. For the linguists in your Lordships House, his continued presence is an utter delight. There is a choice of 11 languages in which to converse with or write to the former archbishop. No one can be in any doubt about the continued value of the contribution of the former archbishop to the work of your Lordships’ House.
As I grew up, NATO, the EEC and the UN were the international organisations on the news. Yet the coverage of the Queen was often of her visits to the so-called Commonwealth countries, which seemed rather unfashionable. I am sure that your Lordships will agree how grateful we are now for Her Majesty’s wisdom. A mere glance at the list of countries reveals those whose modern history is intricately linked to the United Kingdom. Nigeria, Jamaica, Ghana, India and Pakistan are all nations from which many British citizens have originated and with which they maintain active links. Just try booking a flight during a school half term to see what I mean.
However, it is also interesting to note that the Commonwealth includes Muslim, Hindu, Christian and Buddhist majority countries—Malaysia, India, Seychelles and Sri Lanka being respective examples. This could give the Commonwealth a unique role in promoting religious freedom, as outlined in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. The declaration states:
“This right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance”.
I declare my interest as chair of the All-Party Group on International Religious Freedom. The lack of understanding of religious freedom is one of the causes of internal unrest in some Commonwealth countries, such as Nigeria, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Of course, there are also political causes but can one really understand events in northern Nigeria without understanding the context of the lack of understanding of true freedom of religion?
The Commonwealth Charter was adopted on 19 December 2012, but although I do not wish to rain on the parade, Article IV is worded rather unusually. It states:
“We emphasise the need to promote tolerance, respect, understanding, moderation and religious freedom which are essential to the development of free and democratic societies”.
I do not think that “moderation” has ever been used before in a human rights document and this paragraph seems, on one reading, to link it to religious freedom. Could the Minister please ensure that the Government’s view is not that there will be an interpretation of “moderation”, which could perhaps mean accepting only “acceptable” views.
Why is belief not also mentioned in Article IV, which is about freedom of religion and belief? As other noble Lords have mentioned, Article II outlines the grounds on which discrimination is prohibited, but the word used is “creed”, not “religion” and “belief”. I was encouraged by the Government’s response to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee report, when it stated:
“The UK should only accept the Charter’s final wording if it reflects the fundamental principles of the Commonwealth. Before signing the Charter, the Government should assure itself that substantial progress is being made by the Commonwealth towards compliance with international human rights norms”.
I would be grateful if the Minister could provide reassurance and clarification on the matters I have outlined. The security of minority religious communities flows from a proper understanding and enactment of freedom of religion, but it also goes further, as the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Williams, stated in your Lordships’ House in his debate on Christians in the Middle East. He stated that the security of minority communities is,
“something of a litmus test in relation to these wider issues of the political health of the region”.—[Official Report, 9/12/11; col. 927.]
The Commonwealth prides itself on valuing democracy, so it should take seriously ensuring true freedom of religion.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
My Lords, the Commonwealth is a force for good in many ways and I welcome the charter. It gives the organisation, for the first time in its 64-year history, a single document setting out its core values. Yet the Declaration of Commonwealth Principles from 1971 includes this:
“We believe in the liberty of the individual, in equal rights for all citizens regardless of race, colour, creed or political belief, and in their inalienable right to participate by means of free and democratic political processes in framing the society in which they live. We therefore strive to promote in each of our countries those representative institutions and guarantees for personal freedom under the law that are our common heritage”.
However, the Foreign Affairs Committee report, published last November, stated in paragraph 22:
“Several of those we met in Commonwealth countries called for Commonwealth institutions to set out a more vigorous human rights agenda, and to be effective and influential in pursuing it among its members”.
It went on to say in paragraph 25:
“On certain human rights issues, the record of many Commonwealth countries is out of step with much of the developed world … The FCO’s 2011 report on human rights and other sources have recorded intolerance of homosexuality in a number of Commonwealth countries … and the FCO reported that it had recently found it necessary to raise concerns about the possible criminalisation of same-sex marriage in Nigeria and the human rights of homosexual people in Cameroon”.
The language used was guarded and the report gave no suggestion that the Committee had pursued this fundamental issue of human rights any further, but at least it mentioned homosexual repression, unlike the Government’s response to the Foreign Affairs Committee’s report, which did not mention it at all. That is a matter of great regret, because the attitudes and policies of many Commonwealth Governments are shocking. I argue they require urgently to be dragged into the 20th century, never mind the 21st. Article II of the newly signed charter states:
“We are implacably opposed to all forms of discrimination, whether rooted in gender, race, colour, creed, political belief or other grounds”,
as other noble Lords have already referred to. The “other grounds” are not specified but they clearly include lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, even though consensus could not be achieved for spelling that out in the charter. Of course, that serves merely to highlight the bigotry and discrimination that is rampant among so many of the Commonwealth’s member countries, a disgrace that should give every Member of this House pause for thought.
Indeed, the level of homophobic persecution in the Commonwealth beggars belief. More than 40 Commonwealth countries—80% of the total—currently criminalise homosexuality, mostly as a result of laws imposed by Britain during the colonial era that were not repealed when these nations won their independence. For example, penalties for homosexuality include 25 years in jail in Trinidad and Tobago, and 20 years plus flogging in Malaysia. Several Commonwealth countries stipulate life imprisonment for sex between men: Bangladesh, Guyana, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Uganda. There are currently, or have been, severe homophobic witch-hunts in several other Commonwealth countries including Cameroon, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, the Gambia, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
The Government have already expressed concern about the anti-gay Bill that is currently in front of the Nigerian Parliament. Nigeria already has extremely tough anti-gay legislation that designates up to 14 years in jail for men who have sex with men. In the north of the country, where Sharia law prevails, gay and bisexual men can face the death penalty.
Enough is enough: it is time the Commonwealth took a stand against such barbaric behaviour. There are four policies that I believe Her Majesty’s Government should urge all Commonwealth member states to agree to enact: first, the immediate decriminalisation of homosexuality; secondly, the introduction of laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity; thirdly, the introduction and/or enforcement of legislation against threats and violence, to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from hate crimes; and fourthly, the offer of consultation and dialogue with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender organisations.
Until such steps are instigated, the reputation of the Commonwealth as a body that seeks to uphold and advance human rights throughout its membership will remain indelibly tarnished. Indeed, until such steps are instigated, I believe that the Commonwealth is not an organisation that deserves to be taken seriously in that area of its work, which is a statement that I make as much in sorrow as in anger.
Lord Howe of Aberavon
My Lords, there may be some surprise when I commence by saying that this has been one of my interests for more than 75 years. I long cherished the card that was given to me through the Carmel Sunday school in Aberavon, which was issued by King George V on his Silver Jubilee. The card said:
“I ask you to remember that in days to come you will be citizens of a great Empire”.
I am glad to welcome that proposition, although the conclusion may be rather different from that which the King was expecting at that time. The contents most compactly set out in the Charter of the Commonwealth, which have been explained and endorsed already by a number of colleagues, set out what should be the non-imperial conclusion.
I look back on the period when I was able to struggle to play some part in it. Some 12 years after that Sunday school, I found myself on the equator in Kenya, as a lieutenant in the Royal Signals but attached to the East African Signals, themselves attached to the King’s African Rifles. One of my tasks was to run the educational part that we were meant to play with our very effective, long-serving African soldiers. There were about 100 soldiers in that unit including about a dozen Britons, almost all of whom had been in the Burma campaign. Some of the African soldiers had been in London for the victory parade and had been able to establish partnerships with British citizens here at home. I was trying, when doing the non-military work that I had to do, to persuade them that Bwana “Kingy George” was rather better than Bwana Joe Stalin. I hope that I succeeded to some extent. It means having the direct experience of a reality that was less of an empire and more of a partnership, which is what many speakers today have already identified with.
The concept of empire implies authoritarianism. We can see some examples of imperial authoritarianism, which loom in my mind, which help to distort or reform our thinking. I remember, when I had come back from Kenya and arrived at Cambridge, that a gentleman called Patrick Gordon Walker was the Secretary of State for the Commonwealth. He provoked a tremendous student demonstration of horror when he sacked the head of Bechuanaland, Seretse Khama, for the incredible reason that Seretse Khama had married a former London typist. That struck as something contrary to all his other aspects. Many of us reacted with great hostility to that. It led, among other things, to the emergence and the creation by Conservative young colleagues like myself of the Bow Group, when we saw other features taking place. Between 1950 and 1960 there had been an inflow of some 750,000 people from this empire, and it very much strengthened our feeling that we had to make sure that discrimination did not become part of our territory.
Since then, I have been able to see the way in which the Commonwealth worked during my time in office, in a very pragmatic and positive way. For example, the Commonwealth Finance Ministers meeting, of which I was chairman during my time as Chancellor, was in itself more important than the IMF. Tension, of course, was not unknown because of the difference in attitudes between different members of the Commonwealth towards the persistence of apartheid in South Africa. Our Commonwealth conference meetings were dominated by the extent to which we could and should do more to challenge that. We had one CHOGM meeting establishing an Eminent Persons Group led by Malcolm Frazer, the Australian Prime Minister. He led a mission on behalf of the Commonwealth to South Africa to challenge apartheid as it then was. They were able to secure Nelson Mandela’s release from Robin Island. When Malcolm Frazer went to see him in his cell, Nelson Mandela rather startled him by asking the question, “Do tell me, is Donald Bradman still alive?”. That seems to underline the unity of the Commonwealth, binding many of us together. It is in that sense that Britain, as one of the Commonwealth countries, was able thereafter to bring pressure to bear against apartheid. We were able to propaganda like that in South Africa, and were able to see substantial success there in the end.
That background, with the Commonwealth as a collective organisation, supporting, encouraging, offering up advocacy of the right course of events, underlines to me the extent of the value of the Commonwealth declaration today. It underlines the positive value of the most practically effective UK/multinational organisation in this context, whether that is alongside the UK/People’s Republic of China relationship, the EU, NATO, the UK/US or the United Nations. In the context that we are talking about, the Commonwealth has a collective wisdom that can help to advance matters in the right way.
I think that that is all I need to say. I have spoken not about contemporary events but about the history and background that have brought us to the present position. It is that background against which the United Kingdom should approach and influence Commonwealth members and benefit from the collective relationship, one that has come into existence and deserves to be enhanced and amplified.
Lord Luce
My Lords, I am glad to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, under whom I served on numerous occasions, one of which of course was in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The noble Lord has inspired the commitment of the coalition Government to policies on the Commonwealth. I am glad that he is keeping his hand in on the Commonwealth by, for example, leading the Commonwealth Day ceremonies next Monday in Westminster Abbey.
When I look back to the debates in this House on the Commonwealth over the past six or seven years, I think that on some occasions they have been somewhat frustrating and certainly repetitive about the strengths and the assets that the Commonwealth offers. There was always a feeling that no one was listening very much, either in the Government or outside. However, I think that there is now a greater realisation of the importance of soft power and diplomacy. I should perhaps remind the House that the Commonwealth is not a substitute for membership of NATO, the European Union or the United Nations; that vast network of 2 billion people is something quite different that complements it. What seems to have happened over the past year or two is that various strands have come together: the Eminent Persons Group reporting to the Perth summit meeting in October 2011 with some of the recommendations being accepted, followed by the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, a strong report from the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons and on to Commonwealth Week next week.
I sense that, as a result of the Perth meeting, for the first time we have a kind of framework for action within the Commonwealth. We have a chance to monitor progress in the Commonwealth and for Commonwealth Parliaments to take reports from Governments about progress on the Perth recommendations, over 100 of which were made. As the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, said, it was disappointing that a number of the proposals were not accepted at Perth, such as for a commissioner for democracy, human rights and the rule of law, but enough were accepted to demonstrate that, if they are implemented, we can build more confidence in the Commonwealth and perhaps tackle some of the more difficult issues at a later stage.
On the inter-governmental side, like others I welcome the importance of the Commonwealth charter, which consolidates the values expressed in the Commonwealth, but it is important to put flesh on to them. For example, it is good to see that there are going to be stronger measures to deal with good governance in supervising elections. Goodness knows that is needed, for example, this week in Kenya. The Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, which deals with conflict resolution, will be given stronger powers, and the Secretary-General will be asked to use his good offices more forcefully in that direction. All this helps towards the creation of a more stable climate to deal with conflict resolution, which is extremely important for trade. As the noble Lord, Lord Howell, said, that is extremely important and sits at the heart of the Commonwealth.
A number of noble Lords have said that CHOGM next time round is important. To my mind, it is a litmus test of the Commonwealth because it is essential that it shows evidence of progress on human rights issues. I refer to the treatment of the Tamils and the fact that, contrary to the advice of the Supreme Court, the chief justice has been dismissed. Canada has taken a lead on this and it is important that the British Government should express a firm view about it, otherwise there will be a great deal of disillusionment with the Commonwealth.
On the people-to-people side—the non-government side—I will just highlight two areas that the charter stresses. First, in respect of young people, with over 50% of the Commonwealth being under 25, there is the proposal for a youth corps. I myself have been privileged to have been the first president of the Commonwealth Youth Orchestra and am delighted that my noble friend Lady Prashar will succeed me. These kinds of areas are an expression of the importance of the Commonwealth. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester and my noble and right reverend friend Lord Williams mentioned education, which is absolutely vital to the development of the Commonwealth. For example, there is the Commonwealth scholarship scheme, from which 27,000 people within the Commonwealth have benefited. There are numerous proposals, for example from Professor Dilks, for more exchanges in the medical world, as well as in the teachers’ and the youth world. All these areas strengthen the network of the Commonwealth.
The second aspect is civil society, which the charter stresses is also very important. Here, as a former chairman of the Commonwealth Foundation, I ask the Minister what is being done to strengthen the Commonwealth Foundation to act as a catalyst in the non-governmental area and civil society and for the promotion of youth in the Commonwealth. I feel, rather contrary to the view of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, that we now have a chance to give the Commonwealth a new lease of life. The secretariat and the Secretary-General have a vital role. The regions may even have a chance in the Commonwealth to give new momentum. This is an opportunity that we must take, and it is in Britain’s interests that we do so.
Lord Black of Brentwood
My Lords, I want to address the issue of freedom of expression within the Commonwealth, so I declare an interest as the chairman of the Commonwealth Press Union Trust and draw attention to my other media interests in the register.
Along with many other noble Lords who have spoken, I strongly believe that in order to ensure its future the Commonwealth must be seen to be relevant. The greatest danger to its long-term survival is inertia, as a prelude to irrelevance. The Commonwealth charter is a sound attempt to avoid that fate. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Swansea, put it, the charter is of no use unless words are backed by actions. I draw particular attention to Article V of the charter, on freedom of expression. It states:
“We are committed to peaceful, open dialogue and the free flow of information, including through a free and responsible media, and to enhancing democratic traditions and strengthening democratic processes”.
That is absolutely right. However, my worry is that this declaration is simply the latest in a long line of similar oratorical flourishes which will prove meaningless unless backed by firm action.
Back in 2002, the Coolum declaration for the first time listed freedom of expression as one of the principles on which the Commonwealth was founded. Since then there have been many other similar declarations. Just last year, for instance, the Commonwealth Secretariat published a message for World Press Freedom Day which said:
“Commonwealth leaders have consistently re-affirmed their commitment to … freedom of expression and freedom of the press. The challenge is to translate these commitments into action—moving beyond declarations to walking the talk”.
That is absolutely right, yet is precisely what has not happened, and the situation with regard to freedom of expression within far too many Commonwealth countries is desperate. Countries such as Nigeria, Rwanda, Pakistan, Cameroon and Bangladesh languish near the bottom of world press freedom league tables.
For example, in the Gambia, President Jammeh has explicitly said that he will not,
“sacrifice the interests, the peace and stability … of the Gambian people at the altar of freedom of expression”.
Perhaps he need not worry too much as there seems little chance of that given that, under the Newspaper Amendment Act, it costs around $17,000 to obtain a licence to produce a newspaper, making it impossible for virtually the entire population to exercise its fundamental rights. In Malaysia, the constitution specifically gives the Government the power to impose restrictions on press freedom where it is deemed “necessary” and the repressive Printing Presses and Publications Act, alongside the Sedition Act of 1948, is frequently used to suppress debate. In Uganda, journalists are licensed by the Government, and the state media council, operating under the Press and Journalist Act 1995—which the Government of Uganda now wish to tighten further—has wide-ranging powers to discipline journalists.
This state of affairs, in so many Commonwealth countries, is shocking and shows that good words over many years have not been matched by good deeds. It is surely time to put that right with a firm plan of action across the Commonwealth, demanding an end to draconian and anachronistic laws such as criminal defamation, an end to state licensing of journalists, the introduction of freedom of information and the promotion of effective self-regulation in place of repressive state press councils.
At the time of the introduction of the Commonwealth charter, the Foreign Secretary William Hague rightly said:
“The commitments in the charter should be upheld, adhered to and kept under review by member Governments, Parliaments and civil society organisations”.—[Official Report, Commons, 4/3/13; col. WS56.]
I back that sentiment wholeheartedly, but it means in practice that we must begin now to tackle these fundamental human rights abuses. I associate myself completely with the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, about the state of affairs which sees so many Commonwealth countries still criminalising homosexuality, a stain on the reputation of the Commonwealth which is going to be a subject of a debate in this House next Wednesday.
Will my noble friend restate the Government’s commitment, as part of their very welcome plans to reinvigorate the Commonwealth, to promoting freedom of expression throughout the Commonwealth? Does he also agree that one way to ensure that deeds match words is for the Commonwealth Secretariat, in advance of CHOGM, to undertake a freedom of expression audit of all member states to act as a baseline for improvement, an audit against which we can check whether the noble words of the charter are being met with action on the ground? That could be a hugely important first step in ensuring not just that the Commonwealth itself remains relevant and effective but that it is an organisation in which all of us who believe in human rights can be proud to take part.
Lord Empey
My Lords, I wanted to address a couple of issues this afternoon, the first being the economic dimension to the Commonwealth. As we have heard from many speeches, approximately one-third of humanity is engaged in the Commonwealth and it very largely shares with people and businesses in this country a common language and very similar approaches to law. Among these diverse countries are those that are extremely rich in natural resources, such as Australia, Canada and many parts of Africa, and many that are growing fast, particularly in Asia and Africa. It seems reasonable that if this country has a connection with many of those countries, while in no way is it a substitute for our membership of the European Union, surely it should be another string to our bow.
At the beginning of our membership of the European Union we turned our back on many of our former trading partners in the Commonwealth. Some felt great resentment and at that stage it was not necessarily in our economic interests. It most certainly is not in our economic interests today. We should pursue, as hard as we can, the economic development of the Commonwealth, because just as the founders of the European Union had it in their minds that strengthening economic co-operation would also go a long way to preventing conflict, similarly economic development in the Commonwealth can also help to eliminate conflict. As we heard from the noble Lords, Lord Black and Lord Anderson, there are things that are far from perfect, and I welcome the charter. It is a very fine foundation upon which to build.
The second issue, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, is the possible membership of the Commonwealth by the Irish Republic. This is something I would strongly welcome and I ask the Minister if this issue has been raised by Her Majesty’s Government with the Irish Government. If we go back some 30 years to 1982, there was considerable conflict at that time with the Falklands war and others. It was Sir Shridath Ramphal, then the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, who implored Ireland, as he put it, to “come home” to the Commonwealth of nations.
The Commonwealth consists of 54 nations, more than 60% of which are republics. It is no longer, as the Minister said, the British Commonwealth; it is the Commonwealth. Given the diversity of countries, given the new charter, given the fact that the majority of members are republics and given the commonality of history and all that goes with it, it seems to me that it could go a long way towards putting on an even stronger foundation the relationship between this country and the Republic of Ireland, taking its place in the Commonwealth of nations, which will, I believe, be a very strong trading bloc as well as a strong soft-power bloc diplomatically throughout the world. It would strengthen relationships within these islands.
While some would see the Republic joining the Commonwealth as some way of assuaging the views of unionists who might then feel less likely to object to being part of a united Ireland, I can assure your Lordships as a unionist that that is not the case. But that does not mean that we should not do anything and everything in our power to strengthen our relationships and help to build what has the potential to be one of the biggest and most successful trading and economic blocs in the world.
The charter would offend nobody in the Irish Republic; it would be entirely consistent with its long-held views and expressions; and there is no military involvement whatever. Given the progress that has been made in the past 15 years—we are coming up to the 15th anniversary of the signing of the Belfast agreement next month—this could be a further step that we could take together. I hope that people in the Republic will give significant consideration to taking this step.
Lord Sheikh
My Lords, I am pleased to speak in this timely and most worthy debate. I thank my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire for introducing it.
I have been clear in this House previously about my admiration for the Commonwealth. For me, it is a network of countries that strikes the right balance between sharing a commitment to democracy and the rule of law and celebrating the diversity that exists within it.
It proudly knows no geographical, cultural or economic bounds; it is a club of equals. Its modern-day relevance is clear, serving as home to a third of the world’s population. Still, there are countries showing an interest in joining, with Rwanda becoming the newest member in 2009.
The Commonwealth is often described as a link between the first world and the third world. The importance of this cannot be exaggerated. It has the potential to play key roles in conflict resolution and the development of democracy in unstable nations through the use of soft power. Perhaps most notable was the group’s substantial contribution to the end of apartheid in South Africa. However, it should now become more involved in conflict resolution. It is also encouraging to see that the Commonwealth has pledged to give extra assistance to the poorest and most vulnerable members who are affected by climate change.
Your Lordships may be aware that the first ever multinational anti-corruption centre was launched in Botswana last month to tackle corruption right across the continent. The Commonwealth is providing £1 million to help fund this over the next few years, which visibly demonstrates the commitment of Commonwealth countries to helping each other.
As a businessman, it is highly encouraging for me to note that this year’s Commonwealth theme is opportunity through enterprise. The talent and innovation of our young people must be unlocked and harnessed to ensure that Commonwealth countries remain at the forefront of technological and economic development.
I have also spoken in your Lordships’ House many times on the need to increase overseas trade from and between Commonwealth countries. The Commonwealth itself must be more strongly appreciated as a potential trading network, with more emphasis placed on trade—which at the moment stands at about £1.7 trillion. It has £62 billion of foreign direct investment flowing out of it, constituting more than 20% of all international trade and investment. In fact, most member countries conduct between a third and half of their trade with other member countries. We should look very closely at the economic potential of using such an obvious grouping of countries to build business and trade relationships that could be mutually beneficial to all involved. Quite simply, it provides us with a ready-made relationship with some of the most promising emerging markets in India, Africa and Malaysia. I have visited a number of countries in these areas.
Business and trade aside, what makes the Commonwealth so unique is that its citizens have an exceptional sense of pride from being part of the club. Unlike other regional blocs or trading territories, the Commonwealth gains much of its strength from the sense of affinity that binds its countries together. This year is of course particularly special because we are establishing the Commonwealth charter: a set of core values that the nations of the Commonwealth believe in and are expected to uphold and protect on behalf of their people.
We currently face a multitude of global challenges that threaten the long-term health and stability of our planet, so we can again use the Commonwealth as a force for good by mapping out a consensus on major international issues such as terrorism, poverty and climate change. Although the charter does not set contractual obligations, it encourages a sense of shared responsibility and is set within the moral and ethical context from which the Commonwealth has always drawn its strength. National Governments are often more receptive and a lot less hostile to this type of approach, which frees them from the restraints of bureaucracy or quotas but holds them accountable for their principles by their allies.
Far from being an outdated institution, the Commonwealth is perhaps the greatest of all international associations. It has a unique reach across countries, continents and oceans that both celebrates our unity on liberty and democracy, and encourages national sovereignty and diversity. It is the ultimate network fit for the continued challenges of the 21st century. My noble friend Lord Howell deserves praise for greatly raising the profile of the Commonwealth on the world stage. It is vital that the Government continue upon the course he started in adopting a clearer strategy for their relations with the Commonwealth.
Baroness Prashar
My Lords, in recent years we have seen a number of developments in the Commonwealth: the Eminent Persons Group report triggered some changes to increase the effectiveness of the Commonwealth; the adoption of the new Commonwealth charter; and a renewed focus on the Commonwealth by this Government, thanks to the efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford. All these changes are very significant and welcome. They provide a real opportunity to keep up the momentum for change and revitalise both the Commonwealth and its institutions.
The potential of the Commonwealth at all levels is enormous, as we have heard from other contributions this afternoon. The aspirations and expectations of the Commonwealth are high, and those of this Government are very ambitious indeed. The Foreign Secretary, William Hague, identified three main areas where he would like to see the role of the Commonwealth strengthened: human rights and democracy; engagement on global issues, working to liberalise trade and break down barriers to international trade; and an even greater role in development and conflict prevention. To meet these enormous challenges we need effective Commonwealth institutions, ones which are nimble, agile and able to develop mature and constructive partnerships with other regional, international and civil society organisations.
In response to the Eminent Persons Group report the Commonwealth Secretariat is developing a new strategic plan, as we heard earlier, and efforts are being made to reform the institution. While these are welcome developments we need further radical thinking and reform. This is not a criticism of what has been achieved but we need to recognise the current realities. We must be sensitive to the diversity of needs in the Commonwealth and its competing priorities. Different members of the Commonwealth have different priorities. Some want to concentrate on development issues, others on democracy, rule of law and human rights, and others on business. These are interrelated but the starting point for different Commonwealth countries may be different. I am not sure that the Commonwealth Secretariat based in London can deliver the ambitious agenda expected of it.
Now that we have a charter that provides a strong framework of core values, should we not be thinking of creating regional Commonwealth hubs, or at least offices, in three regions—for example, the Caribbean, Africa and Asia—with a slimmed-down secretariat in London? This may seem a bold suggestion but it would enable the secretariat to respond to the relevant needs and priorities of countries in those regions within the framework of the charter, develop purposeful links with civil society and other regional organisations there, and have a greater impact.
In the time allocated it is not possible to spell out the notion of regional hubs and offices in detail. In response to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, the Government said that they would continue to seek to be a positive influence on the Commonwealth Secretariat, working with and through it to make it more efficient, focused and relevant in today’s world. It would be helpful if they could now urge the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group to set up a group, similar to the Eminent Persons Group, to explore options for further reform of the secretariat and the feasibility of regional offices and hubs.
This group could also look at what implications this would have for the future appointment of the Secretary-General and his or her senior staff. In a modern world and Commonwealth, appointments should be made through open competition, backed by a clear idea of skills, experience and qualities required for the job. I am not the first person to suggest this; it has been recommended before.
The same can apply to organisations like the CPA and the Commonwealth Foundation. They, too, could look to be part of regional hubs. Similarly, Commonwealth civil society organisations could work and collaborate with devolved regional hubs and be more effective on the ground. As former chairman and president of the Royal Commonwealth Society, I know that there is appetite within civil society organisations to help and support the secretariat. Good practice already exists. For example, the advocacy campaign on ending child marriage in the Commonwealth, led by the Royal Commonwealth Society and Plan International, an organisation with offices across the world, has made and continues to make a real impact.
The time is ripe for radical thinking and reform of Commonwealth institutions if we want the Commonwealth to realise its potential and remain the platform for the future. I very much hope that the Government will take up this initiative and urge consideration of further radical reform.
Lord Selsdon
My Lords, I should declare that I suppose I am, by accident, what might be defined as a child of the Commonwealth. When I first came back with my sister from Canada, where we were left during the war, we were introduced to our family, my mother in particular. Most of her family were called Williams, a lovely patronymic surname that I have always admired. More than that, for family bonding we went on holiday for the first time, which was quite difficult when there was no petrol around, to Mumbles. I therefore have a great affection for the current position of—I must get this right, because my noble friend Lord Howell, got it wrong—the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Williams. That was my most difficult research before speaking today. I am most grateful to him for a debate that he introduced some time ago on the importance and effect of religion in the Middle East, which touched me deeply.
As a child of the Commonwealth, and knowing that there is so little time left, one must always have a theme. I will take the theme of a minute. A minute is, as noble Lords know, one nautical mile upon the surface of the earth. Therefore, when I look down from heaven or up from wherever it might be, what do I see? Seventy per cent of the earth is ocean or sea. The land is only a very small percentage. It is spread far and wide, and you either look down on it from above the Antarctic, the Arctic or the equator, but, in general, when you look down upon it, the map that you see has Greenwich, which is in the United Kingdom, in the centre, as it should be, due to the technology of the Harrison chronometer. It matters not, but technology was what enabled us to go out into the world.
This degree and this 70% water become important to me because, by some strange calculation, it seems that the United Kingdom, its British territories and the other main Commonwealth countries are the most dominant with their economic exclusion zones of 200 nautical miles controlling the oceans of the world, where there are 22,000 shipping vessels and others. In comparison, the United States has 6.2 million square kilometres against our 27 million square kilometres. The rest of NATO has 4.5 million square kilometres, but the French territories become quite important with 7.7 million square kilometres. Does this mean anything? Possibly it does not, but it can do strategically and if we look at such issues as global warming or trade. If we say that 90% of all trade goes by sea, of the 100,000 vessels upon the face of the earth, 20% are Commonwealth and 20% are fishing vessels. This may be utterly irrelevant to this debate, but to me it is relevant because I want to move on to look at climate change.
I had the privilege to go to a presentation the other day about the Arctic and I got something of a shock. With global warming before very long the north-west passage will be open, which means that the great ships of the world will be moving there in five days rather than eight, with enormous fuel savings. It means that the whole structure of Europe and the United Kingdom may change, and perhaps even Scapa Flow will come back into being.
On the impact of that change and the changes that are taking place in the southern hemisphere, we can talk about Antarctica, which, as a result of the Bill introduced by my noble friend Lord Montgomery, is well protected and does not belong to anyone, although the greatest claimants are, as your Lordships know, always those who play rugby—I do not know about Papua New Guinea. I do not know what that link is, but it is there. Let us suppose global warning continues. At the presentation I went to, some eminent government scientists pointed out that flooding as a result of climate change could have a major impact on India and many other Commonwealth countries, and that we should be aware that it is not that far away. This is all way beyond my pay grade, but as secretary and treasurer of the House of Lords Yacht Club, it gives me great pleasure to know that floating upon the face of the earth are more British vessels than vessels of any other country, and they are Commonwealth-flagged. We must therefore ask: what is the Commonwealth flag and what does it stand for? Even in today’s debate, we have different opinions. I believe that trade is the bearer of all wealth, knowledge and understanding.
The Earl of Sandwich
My Lords, I asked a relation of mine what she thought of the Commonwealth, and she said, “Well, it’s a sentimental thing, isn’t it?”. She made it sound like a keepsake or a woolly rabbit, but then she said, “If the members like it, then it must have value”. Judging from its latest report, the Foreign Affairs Select Committee would not be satisfied with that.
The Commonwealth obviously does a lot of good, but is it trying hard enough and can it do better? Having spent most of my working life in voluntary organisations, I see it as a rather cumbersome NGO gently nudging member states around the world towards better modes of governance, democracy, education, human rights and economic development. Some countries move forward, and some, as the noble Lords, Lord Anderson and Lord Watson, have pointed out, slip backwards.
NGOs, including church agencies, can have a potent effect, especially at a local level. I have seen the best ones working around officialdom and engaging directly with the community, and often representing them where elected politicians fail them. Some are bureaucratic, but most give value for money. Some are dominated by strong personalities with political motives, but there is no harm in that. My own interest in politics stems from working with Christian Aid. I firmly believe in the potential of civil society to influence events, and for similar reasons I see the Commonwealth as a force for good in the world.
However, as the FAC says, the Commonwealth needs to tighten up its act. As we have heard, the new charter adopted at the Perth CHOGM last year brings together the key values uniting the Commonwealth: democracy, human rights and the rule of law. The charter emphasises the role of civil society, albeit in its final paragraph 16. I welcome that because it is not only a hallmark of such a diverse organisation but a means of extending important principles that might otherwise remain mere aspirations. For example, I can think of a number of countries where there is little progress towards those values but where civil society nevertheless has a strong tradition of resistance.
Parliamentary strengthening is of course a key activity, and I have seen this through CPA visits. However, in this we must move further away from a Westminster-centred approach towards a more respectful recognition of local traditions. Here I concur with what the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, said. This may be why the Commonwealth has recently focused on human rights. The Secretary-General intends to deepen the secretariat’s strategic partnership with the High Commissioner for Human Rights. I wonder if the Minister can explain what that means, remembering that the next CHOGM will be in Colombo. When the FAC complained about this, Her Majesty’s Government’s reply was rather lame. They said:
“We look to Sri Lanka … to demonstrate its commitment to upholding Commonwealth values”.
The Minister repeated something similar just now. It is undoubtedly an embarrassment for everyone except the Sri Lankan Government that CHOGM is taking place in Colombo.
I would like to see South Sudan become the latest member of the Commonwealth. It applied informally after independence in 2011 and its application was universally welcomed in Perth. However, it seems that the Commonwealth may be suffering from enlargement fatigue, a condition normally associated with the European Union. Is there any reason why a post-conflict and least developed country, having survived 30 years of war, desperately in need of international assistance and near the top of every development agency’s priorities, should be made to wait for formalities?
I telephoned and e-mailed the secretariat last week and it told me that essentially the process has no timeframes. It depends on how quickly the aspiring member state follows the requirements, which include a resolution by the country’s parliament. It said that the secretariat does not push the process. Well, who does? Suspecting that South Sudan had been left to its own devices, I rang the South Sudanese Ambassador, Mr Sebit Aley, and he told me that that was indeed the position. His Minister had discussed the application with his Australian counterpart. The FCO was present, and he had received an assurance that South Sudan would be assisted in its application. However, he said that he had heard nothing since then and was still waiting for the list of requirements. I have mentioned all this to our new ambassador to South Sudan. Capacity-building is a familiar concept, and I hope that the Minister will now be able to move things further forward.
Baroness Hooper
My Lords, this has been an excellent debate. As always, however much one thinks that they know about a subject, there is more that one can learn. It has also been a most appropriate occasion for us to hear from the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Williams of Oystermouth, in his new capacity in your Lordships’ House.
Last year I was not able to participate in the Commonwealth Day debate here, as I was celebrating it in Brunei. The date coincided with Brunei’s annual session of the legislative assembly, a rare and privileged occasion for one of the smaller members of the Commonwealth. I welcome the fact that this Commonwealth Day debate is becoming a fixture in our agenda, albeit that it is not taking place precisely on the day itself. The idea that all Commonwealth countries should endeavour to hold such a debate on or close to 12 March is a good one. It came out of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association’s centenary meeting, which took place in London in 2011. Like the noble Lord, Lord Luce, I feel that some of these events are providing a more visible framework for Commonwealth activities.
It is important that parliaments should be involved in the development of the role of the Commonwealth, and that such matters are not just left to heads of government and the Commonwealth institutions themselves. Today’s debate and the suggestions that have come out of it, as well as the debate that is due to be held in the other place next week, prove the point. In this, the United Kingdom branch of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association plays a leading role, and I declare an interest as a member of the executive council. The programme of meetings, seminars and conferences, which the secretariat organises both for parliamentarians from other countries and for parliamentary officials from other Commonwealth countries, have been hugely successful and popular and are well received.
The theme of last year’s 58th CPA conference, which took place in Sri Lanka, was, “Ensuring a relevant Commonwealth for the future”. I agree that this means not only looking at the trade and networking opportunities that membership of the Commonwealth can offer but at what still needs to be done—for example, as the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, mentioned earlier, the fact that some 36 countries still have the death penalty. Other references have been made to human rights and issues that still remain to be worked on.
Since today is International Women’s Day, it is worth mentioning that at the Sri Lankan conference last year the Commonwealth women parliamentarian’s steering committee committed itself afresh to strategies to increase women’s representation in parliaments, especially in small states where adequate numbers and candidates might not always receive sufficient encouragement.
Following the centenary of the CPA the year before, last year saw the celebration of the Queen’s 60 years as head of the Commonwealth. There is an All-Party Group for the Commonwealth in Parliament, and yesterday we heard from the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust, which was set up to commemorate the Queen’s jubilee with special reference to the Commonwealth. Its current programme is aimed at accelerating the work towards ending avoidable blindness across the Commonwealth, in part through partnerships and by supporting the existing initiatives in this field. It also intends to provide support for young people by bringing them together and providing mentoring for young leaders, and its work needs some acknowledgment.
I underline what has been said about the importance of education and educational links, and wish that the Commonwealth of Learning, which is based in Canada, had more recognition and encouragement in this country. I was delighted to hear from my noble friend the Minister at the outset about the increase in Commonwealth and Chevening scholarships. I welcome the fact that the Commonwealth Youth Parliament is now in its fifth year and that its meetings, which have taken place in your Lordships’ House and the House of Commons, are now to be a fixture in the CPA calendar and are due to take place in other Commonwealth countries. The enthusiasm of these young people must make us optimistic about the future. I also welcome the initiative of the Commonwealth Youth Orchestra, to which the noble Lord, Lord Luce, referred.
I do not want to finish without a brief mention of the overseas territories. I was pleased to hear the Minister’s reassurance that these tiny territories are not forgotten. Their role within the Commonwealth has been somewhat anomalous in the past, so it is important that a special recognition of their existence should be maintained as well as mentioned in the charter.
As has been emphasised throughout this debate, we share so much within the Commonwealth: values, institutions, language and a common history. We can now look forward to a common future, and the adoption of the Commonwealth charter will, I hope, help to bring this about.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, I warmly welcome this debate, and I have greatly enjoyed the many and varied contributions this afternoon, especially the sort of maiden speech by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Williams of Oystermouth, in his recycled life. I also pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, especially for the work he has done for the Commonwealth.
I have always been a firm supporter of the Commonwealth; likewise, I have always been a firm supporter of the European Union. I therefore strongly disagree with those—not in this Chamber this afternoon—who yearn for isolation from the European Union, believing that enhanced links within the Commonwealth would strengthen our position in the world. That is both wrong-headed and romantic. Our membership of a single market of almost 500 million citizens, a powerful global trading block, must never be undervalued. Both organisations fulfil different and distinct roles, but they share common values, which include democracy, human rights, good governance and the rule of law. At a time when there has been an ever-accelerating movement of wealth and power from north to south, from west to east, and geopolitics is in a constant swirl, it is our key relationships with both that help to define our place in the world.
A couple of weeks ago, when the Prime Minister visited Amritsar, he rightly described the massacre, the atrocity of 1919, as,
“a deeply shameful event in British history”.
Churchill described it at the time as “monstrous”, as indeed it was. It brought home the injustices of imperialism, episodes in our history of which we should be deeply ashamed—although clearly we did many good things. For me, it also encapsulated the complexities of the Commonwealth and our shared history.
I was attracted by the suggestions made by the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, about further radical reform of the Commonwealth, for example by the introduction of regional hubs. I also welcome the Commonwealth Charter, which defines an impressive project, and agree that it is an important statement of what the Commonwealth stands for. It will ensure that the organisation renews itself and remains relevant in the 21st century, while retaining its values—that is, as long as its declarations are translated into actions, as the noble Lord, Lord Black, said.
There are many who question that relevance. I recall difficult discussions with Indian parliamentarians last year during an excellent visit organised by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. Some of our interlocutors saw the Commonwealth only as an organisation born out of Empire, and believed that our position within the European Union was of much more interest to them. I have no doubt that there will be many successful outcomes following the recent trade mission to India led by the Prime Minister. Although the business potential is enormous, it is clear that we cannot rely on our historic ties and our powerful diaspora for business preferment. I should add that mixed messages about visas do not help. I endorse the comments made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester about the damage being done by our restrictive visa policy to intergenerational relationships and to our soft power, which is rightly celebrated by the Government.
The charter provides an opportunity for the Commonwealth to restate its role in a fast-changing world, but for that opportunity to be truly grasped, the core values and principles have to be adhered to. It is a voluntary association of independent, sovereign states which celebrate diversity while sharing history and traditions; we share a culture but have many cultural differences. However, those differences must not be allowed to override our shared respect for human rights, as clearly stated in the charter in a gloriously robust paragraph that ends:
“We are implacably opposed to all forms of discrimination, whether rooted in gender, race, colour, creed, political belief or other grounds”.
Like my noble friend Lord Watson of Invergowrie, I therefore have to wonder why, in the 21st century, the Commonwealth still tolerates not only the criminalisation of homosexuality in many Commonwealth countries, but the fact that in northern Nigeria the maximum punishment for same-sex sexual activity is death by stoning, and in Uganda, legislators are considering an anti-gay Bill that includes a death penalty provision.
I would be grateful for an assurance from the Minister that in all Commonwealth gatherings, we will raise these issues, which are an affront to our declared commitment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That is, or at least should be, one of the great strengths of the Commonwealth. It brings together countries from North and South, developed and developing, and should enable us to discuss the most difficult issues and to find solutions to problems such as tax transparency. In too many of our discussions in the past on development and migration, we have looked for north-south solutions. However, within the Commonwealth, matters can be resolved though south-south dialogues, and the Commonwealth.
On the issue of human rights, like other noble Lords, I look forward to hearing from the Minister a proper update on the Government’s support for the holding of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Sri Lanka later this year—a country where there are still horrific abuses of human rights. In my view it is clear that the host of CHOGM must uphold the Commonwealth values of good governance and respect for human rights; this is, indeed, a litmus test. Like my noble friend Lord Anderson, I regret that the CHOGM held in Perth last year did not adopt the proposal from the eminent persons group to create a commissioner for democracy, the rule of law and human rights. I know that the arguments against it were that it would duplicate the roles of the secretary-general and the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, but I take a very different position. In my view, it would have strengthened the Commonwealth’s institutions and the democratic institutions and the rule of law in all the member states. Democracy is fragile; it needs constant nurturing and vigilance; and the appointment of a commissioner would have helped.
I am sure that we all look forward to free, fair and transparent elections in Pakistan in a few months’ time. This will be the first transition from one democratically elected Government to another in the country’s history. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell the House what arrangements are being made to monitor the elections. While welcoming the elections, I have deep concerns about the fact that more that 12 million women will not be able to participate in them because they do not have an identity card and therefore cannot register to vote. That says much about the status of women in our Commonwealth, although some wonderful advances are being made by women in Pakistan, which I will briefly mention in due course if time permits.
I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and the work that it does in bringing together parliamentarians and facilitating discussions and exchanges of best practice. Sometimes the deeper understanding and new relationships have very practical outcomes: for example, in developing partnerships between organisations and institutions in the UK and other Commonwealth countries. There are also many examples of links that have been forged between small and medium-sized enterprises in the UK and other countries, providing trading and employment opportunities. Again, this is very much a two-way process, with benefits to developing and developed countries.
A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege of participating in a CPA visit to Pakistan to continue a dialogue that we had begun with women parliamentarians from Pakistan and Afghanistan. During our visit, we met inspirational women who are working in Parliament, NGOs, communities and the home to lift people out of poverty and to ensure a more equal society. As we heard in our earlier debate, thanks to the Women’s Parliamentary Caucus, there have been stunning successes in getting rid of deeply discriminatory laws. It has also produced laws against, for example, acid throwing and has many more in the pipeline on domestic violence and many other issues of critical importance to women. The greatest challenge now is changing mindsets and culture to ensure the application of those laws. Our discussions focused on women’s economic empowerment, and many of the issues raised were exactly the same as those which I discussed with the Forest of Dean Businesswomen’s Network last Friday. The potential for women’s economic and social empowerment throughout the Commonwealth is mighty and it is right that we recognise that on International Women’s Day.
The CPA and all other organisations and networks that bind the Commonwealth together must never become a mere talking shop, a travelling merry-go-round. They must be effective partners, working together in friendship to protect and support human rights, build the capacity of democratic institutions, respect the rule of law, work for peace and reconciliation and contribute to the millennium development goals. In undertaking these tasks, there are vast opportunities to enhance our relationships in education, business, industry, healthcare and so much more. In our fast-moving, ever-changing world, in which the sustainability of our natural resources grows in importance by the day, it is to our mutual benefit to grasp those opportunities in what should and must be a vibrant global network.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, this has been a very valuable debate. We covered only a little bit of the Commonwealth, which is a highly diverse, very complicated network. In reading up for this, I become conscious that the value the Commonwealth provides is often extremely different for different members. The smaller states in the Commonwealth find it a huge extension to their global engagement and an opportunity for them to express their strong concerns. For example, in developing a Commonwealth perspective on climate change, the small island states of the Pacific had a major role in explaining to their neighbours and Commonwealth partners just how vital the issue of climate change was for their future viability.
I was struck by the interpretation of the Commonwealth from the noble Lord, Lord Luce, so I will start with that. The Commonwealth is not like the EU or NATO. It is a very different organisation of networks, links, soft power as opposed to hard power, aspirations rather than obligations. That makes it very difficult to assess and to judge and very easy to get deeply frustrated with the moderate lack of progress. It is a loose and diverse association that has to be judged by criteria different from those we currently use to assess the EU, the transatlantic relationship or NATO. I say, as someone who occasionally reads the Europhobe blogosphere, that the Commonwealth is not an alternative to the EU and NATO. It is a very helpful complement to it, which the British Government and other members of the Commonwealth should do their utmost to develop to the full.
Some states fall some way short of the values that we have now agreed in the Commonwealth charter. A few sometimes fall a long way short and, as noble Lords will be well aware, every now and again a Commonwealth member falls so far short that its membership is suspended for a period. That is the way the Commonwealth works, but it works by consensus, not by qualified majority voting. Organisations that work by consensus move unavoidably and necessarily slowly. That can give rise to the more critical perspective presented by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, but we have different sorts of frustrations with the European Union and other tighter organisations than we do with the Commonwealth. We must make the best of what the Commonwealth is and not get too frustrated that it is not something else.
As noble Lords have suggested, there are several dimensions of the Commonwealth relationship. Shared values, shared heritage and shared approach to the rule of law are crucial and it is a major step forward that we have managed to agree the Commonwealth Charter. Alongside good governance, the rule of law and human rights, there is a commitment to development and assistance for sustainable development in particular that has taken us into the area of climate change in which, as a network that crosses regions and the developed and developing world, the Commonwealth has a very useful role to play.
The Commonwealth has brought us all sort of human links between Britain and other Commonwealth countries. I spent a day canvassing in Southwark at the last election and was amazed by how many different Commonwealth countries I discussed with people I met on the doorstep. We have human links like dual citizenship and intermarriage and there is also increasingly a two-way link. Tata owns major British companies; we invest in India, the Indians invest in us. That is something else that we should exploit. This leads on to economic and commercial ties that we should be developing as much as we can. It is a concern that only 10% of Britain’s exports currently go to the Commonwealth. It ought to be a great deal more. It is excellent that they are increasing, but that is not to say that we should be reducing the quantity of exports that go to the European Union; we should be exploiting Commonwealth markets as much as we can.
Then there is the global intergovernmental network, which brings together diverse states to discuss problems of common interest such as financial regulation, tax avoidance and tax havens, which again gives us the opportunity to talk to other important states. In recent years, the Commonwealth has necessarily been discussing renewal and modernisation. We have now agreed a limited reform agenda. The Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group has been strengthened and Her Majesty’s Government are committed to ensuring that the reforms agreed by Commonwealth heads of government are now implemented. We will monitor this closely, assess the impact of the adopted reforms and keep both Houses updated.
A key part of the reform agenda will be ensuring that the Commonwealth Secretariat sharpens its focus. The secretariat’s new strategic plan is important to refocus Commonwealth programmes on the areas where it can add more value than other organisations. I note with interest the suggestion of the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, that we should be thinking about regional hubs for the secretariat in the future. That is probably something that needs to come from regional groups within the Commonwealth, but Her Majesty’s Government would welcome such a development if viable proposals were put forward.
A number of noble Lords have spoken on the Commonwealth Charter, the aspirations that it spells out and by how far a number of Commonwealth countries fall short of those aspirations. The noble Lord, Lord Black, spoke about problems of press freedom in a number of Commonwealth states, which are very much a matter of concern; the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, spoke about religious freedom and freedom of minorities; and a number of noble Lords spoke about the persecution of homosexuals, the death penalty and so on. I can assure noble Lords that Her Majesty’s Government do raise those issues bilaterally and multilaterally within the Commonwealth. As I read diplomatic telegrams within the Foreign Office, I frequently see reports that Ministers have vigorously addressed these questions when talking to other members of the Commonwealth. We of course hope that other Commonwealth Governments do the same, and we work with them as much as we can.
It is one of the tragedies of where we are in the world that when we talk about the protection of religious minorities, we have to admit that part of the surge of persecution of homosexuals in Africa at the present moment is being driven by competition among Pentecostal churches in some African countries, as well as by competition between Muslim and Christian churches on the great boundary between Islam and the world. However, Her Majesty’s Government indeed raise these issues and work very hard to counter pressures in the opposite direction.
The noble Lord, Lord Luce, asked what was being done to strengthen the Commonwealth Foundation. DfID gives about £1 million a year to the foundation, which promotes democracy, good governance and sustainable development by strengthening links and dialogue between civil society organisations. The foundation has just agreed a new strategic plan that provides clear lines for its future action within civil society. We see the foundation’s role at the People’s Forum taking place in parallel with CHOGM as a useful and important supplementary role. The Foreign Secretary made a keynote speech in support of civil society at the People’s Forum at CHOGM in 2011.
Noble Lords also mentioned the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust, an independent trust to which a number of Commonwealth Governments have so far pledged support. Its intention is to promote additional Commonwealth scholarships, not just between Britain and other Commonwealth countries but—I am glad to say that this is beginning to develop—between different Commonwealth countries, not always including Britain. The Indian Government have, I am told, begun to develop in their own direction Commonwealth scholarships for students from other Commonwealth countries. That is how the Commonwealth should operate as a network.
The Diamond Jubilee Trust will run for five years, fundraising until October 2013, then distributing the funds and supporting the implementation of programmes for a further four years. It will focus on tackling avoidable blindness and youth leadership. It is now working out the detailed design of its programmes in both areas and aims to work with a broad coalition of partners.
The most difficult area that has been raised is the forthcoming CHOGM in Colombo. The Government of Sri Lanka face considerable challenges and Her Majesty’s Government continue to raise questions about how well they are doing in post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation. My honourable friend Alistair Burt was in Colombo some weeks ago and, as well as the capital, he also visited Tamil majority areas in the north of the country, to see what was happening on the ground. Some progress has been made, for example on economic development, demining and the rehabilitation of child soldiers.
On the other hand, we are distressed by the arrest of the chief justice and what that means for the rule of law within the country. We are clear that more needs to be done, such as on the demilitarisation of the north, political settlement and accountability, and we continue to consider our position on what sort of representation we will provide for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting when it takes place.
A number of other countries were mentioned. The Gambia also concerns us to a considerable extent. I note that the Gambian Government have accused not Britain but the European Union of neocolonialism. There are severe problems in terms of how far one can bring pressure to bear on small countries. Apart from the United Kingdom Government and the European Union collectively, few other countries appear to be actively concerned about what is now happening.
There were a number of questions about election monitoring. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, that we are not aware of a request from the Government of Pakistan for the Commonwealth to monitor elections there. The Commonwealth responds to invitations to monitor, it does not invite itself and there has to be an invitation from the Government concerned. I entirely agree that these are key elections and we would very much like to see a Commonwealth monitoring mission. I am sure that everyone is aware that there is a Commonwealth electoral monitoring mission now in Kenya that is doing its best to monitor the elections there. In 2012, the Commonwealth observed elections in Papua New Guinea, Sierra Leone, Lesotho and Ghana, so this is an active element in what the Commonwealth does.
My noble friend Lord Hussain raised the question of Kashmir. We all recognise the importance of finding a solution to the situation there. It is the key to reconciliation between India and Pakistan and is also an issue on the streets of a number of cities in Britain. We welcome the renewed engagement between India and Pakistan, but recognise that the reconciliation has to be led by those two countries above all. We are willing to provide all necessary resources to assist that process.
We are also concerned with what is happening in the Maldives. My extremely hard-working honourable friend Alistair Burt has just returned from the Maldives where he spoke to the President, opposition leaders and others and is best to assess the current situation. Both the Commonwealth Secretary-General and its special envoy, Sir Don McKinnon, have spoken of the importance of free, fair and inclusive elections in the Maldives, but the situation is still developing. We welcome the engagement of the Indian Government, but we are not entirely sure what the outcome will be.
The noble Lord, Lord Empey, spoke passionately and pleasingly about relations between Ireland and the Commonwealth, with perhaps the prospect of Ireland joining. Her Majesty’s Government would of course welcome such a prospect, but the initial request would appropriately come from Dublin and would be made to the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Commonwealth as a whole, not to the United Kingdom. After all, Ireland has a very strong record in international peacekeeping since the Second World War, and a long tradition of development assistance to Africa, so it has many of the links that one would wish to see, and it self-evidently meets all the criteria for Commonwealth membership.
When Ireland joined the European Union, Garret FitzGerald said to me that joining the European Union was like gaining an additional dimension to Irish independence because it began to have a whole new set of international relationships. I suspect that if Ireland were to join the Commonwealth, it would extend this network even further. I hope that noble Lords have noted the innovation of a small joint UK-Irish military training team in Mali, which is another small but significant step: British and Irish military personnel working together in a peacekeeping and post-conflict reconstruction operation.
I rather hoped that the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, was going to ask about the Sandwich Islands. He asked about South Sudan. I do not think one can talk about an undue delay to South Sudan’s application. There has to be a consensus among the 54 member states. South Sudan is a very new and still slightly fragile state. I have friends and relatives who are working there and I am aware of just how difficult they are finding it to reconstruct a governmental apparatus after the end of the conflict. There are major efforts by Her Majesty’s Government and by agencies of other Commonwealth Governments, including South Sudan’s southern neighbours, to assist.
I have touched a little on trade and prosperity. We are committed to strengthening trade links with partners across the world, including those in the Commonwealth. The enormously useful and important delegation that the Prime Minister has just taken to India is part of that process. We see this Commonwealth Week’s theme of “Opportunity through Enterprise” as part of that process in which we build on our existing economic links with the Commonwealth. Commonwealth countries can also make excellent springboards into Asia and Africa. For example, Singapore, Brunei and Malaysia link the Commonwealth to ASEAN—the Association of South-East Asian Nations—and Canada, of course, represents an important gateway to North America for many countries.
The Government are focused on building stronger links within the Commonwealth and strengthening the Commonwealth as a network of networks. We are taking a number of practical steps to strengthen our engagement in the Commonwealth, including strengthening our diplomatic network. We opened a new deputy high commission in Hyderabad in India last year; another will follow in Chandigarh. We are strengthening our commercial capacity in countries such as Canada, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea and Guyana. Here in London we have increased the number of staff working on the Commonwealth.
Our renewed focus has also involved a change in approach and in the way we work by seeking to make the most of our Commonwealth contacts. In the past 12 months FCO Ministers have visited around 20 Commonwealth countries. This has left us in a strong position to build on the progress we have already made on our Commonwealth agenda.
I am conscious that a number of noble Lords have mentioned the visa issue. We all recognise how delicate and difficult this issue is at present. I will take that away and feed it in to our continuing conversations.
This has been an invaluable debate. If I go on for more than another minute, I shall lose the rest of my voice, so let me sum up by saying that I thank the noble Lord, Lord Howell, again, for all the efforts he put in to raising the visibility of the Commonwealth as an issue in British foreign policy. I know that there are many in this House who have spent a good deal of their time and careers working on the Commonwealth connection. I hope that there will be many more and that the Commonwealth, with the efforts that we and many other Commonwealth countries will make, will remain a vital, vibrant and values-based international network.